Before calling Senator Mooney. I welcome Deputy Allen on his first visit to the House as a Minister of State. I wish him success in his new portfolio.
Adjournment Matters. - School Bus Service.
I endorse the Cathaoirleach's welcoming remarks. I am pleased to be part of a small piece of history as Minister of State, Deputy Allen, addresses the Seanad for the first time on the Adjournment. The Minister is familiar with the wording of the motion as he addressed a similar motion in the Lower House last week. However, I understand that matters have moved on since then and this provides me with an opportunity to discuss the issue without delaying the House by repeating details of which Minister is already aware.
The original intention of the motion was to attempt to resolve a difficulty which has arisen as a result of the opening of a new community school in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, and the subsequent busing of children through a residential area to get to the school. Picking up and setting down those children has created enormous difficulties for the residents. It is now a matter of public controversy in the Carrick-on-Shannon area. I do not wish to pre-empt what the Minister will say, but I appreciate that there may be some difficulties with regard to the extension of public liability insurance.
This matter came about as a result of discussions with CIE, which acts as the franchise owners for the Department of Education in the operation of the school bus system. It was felt that it would help to resolve the problem if the Department extended public liability insurance to the car park of the sports complex adjoining the community school for the purposes of setting down and picking up children at specific times of the day. It was approached in this fashion because the Department already extends public liability insurance to students using the sports complex, admittedly under supervision. However, I understand there may be other reasons the Department is reluctant to go down this road.
I wish to correct the information supplied in the Minister's reply last week. It contained certain inaccuracies, although I appreciate the Minister was acting on the basis of information supplied to him by Bus Éireann which acts as his agent in this matter. As in all scéil. beidh dhá thaobh, there are two sides to every story. A substantial amount of correspondence has come on to my desk in the last 24 hours — and I have no doubt this also applies to the Minister's desk — from the Summerhill Residents' Association, referring to a number of these inaccuracies. The most pertinent is a suggestion that the residents' association had come latterly to this dispute when it had, in fact, alerted the Minister for Education as far back as January 1993 to the potential difficulties which would arise if Bus Éireann insisted on sending its buses through the Summerhill residential area. I am not sure if I can contribute to a solution to this difficult problem, nor do I expect the Minister to perform miracles.
I suggested to the Summerhill Residents' Association and by extension to the school authorities that the appointment of what are colloquially known as lollipop men or women at the pick up and set down point on the road in question, at the front of the school, might go some way towards alleviating this difficulty. Proposals made for alternative routings for the school buses have been rejected by Bus Éireann and I am interested to know why it has refused to use alternative routes. Perhaps the Minister will elucidate this point. The question of providing a road safety service at the school should be explored, perhaps by the school authorities, who are ultimately responsible in this area, or at the Minister's urging.
I draw the Minister's attention to a similar situation that exists on the N4, the road which runs from Dublin to Sligo. I am sure the Minister is familiar with other parts of the country but I use this example because it is the one of which I am most knowledgeable. There is a school in the middle of the N4 and if one is driving through Longford in the morning or at the end of classes, there is inevitably a huge volume of traffic using the road. However, there is a lollipop system in place which, presumably, operates without any great difficulty and, allows parents to drop off their children. It also allows school buses to drop off children and although this is further back, the children must walk down to that point and negotiate the N4. A minor county road, a by-road in effect, is involved in the Carrick-on-Shannon situation and it should not be beyond the capacity of Bus Éireann, the Department of Education, the school authorities and the Summerhill Residents' Association to come to some equitable solution.
It is disappointing that there does not seem to have been any reference to a potential problem when the school was being built, although the Summerhill Residents' Association would argue that it alerted the Minister as far back as 1993. However, I understand that, as a result of the restrictive nature of parking in the immediate school grounds, the school buses would not have access to the school grounds. This has created the difficulty in that they must allow the children to alight on the public road. The Minister is fully aware of the various aspects of the case but, at the risk of repetition and for the benefit of the Summerhill residents, the children's parents and the school authorities, I ask that whatever reply the Minister gives to the House will go some way towards resolving this problem, which should have been resolved a long time ago.
If I were to lay blame on any side I would have to put on record my disappointment — and I will put it no stronger than that — at the seeming intransigence of the representatives of Bus Éireann in this matter. They do not seem to have been at all responsive to the genuine fears of local residents considering the various alternatives which were put in place. Some of these had the active support and participation of Leitrim County Council, which has bent over backwards to progress this problem in whatever way it could as a local authority. With most of the parties involved willing and anxious to help solve this problem, I suggest that the Minister nudge his agents. Bus Éireann in this instance, towards a greater degree of flexibility on this issue.
A Chathaoirligh, I wish to thank you for your comments and also Senator Mooney.
This is a very difficult problem and it is the first problem I have had in relation to school transport and——
They are always difficult.
——it surely will not be the last one, but having listened to Senator Mooney, I will be as flexible as I can in order to find a solution. I understand that this matter has arisen because a group of residents living in the Summerhill area adjacent to the newly opened Carrick-on-Shannon community school object to six school buses which carry pupils to and from the school using the Summerhill Road. The residents have claimed that the buses will cause traffic congestion in their area and have requested that the buses use an alternative route. The alternative routes are the Circular Road which, I understand, is narrow and in poor condition and would require upgrading at considerable cost, and a secondary route linking the N4 Dublin-Sligo road.
A meeting between representatives of Leitrim County Council, Bus Éireann, the Summerhill Residents' Association, the parents' association of the school and the local transport liaison officer was held on 13 January 1995. At this meeting, a temporary arrangement was agreed — that, for a two week period, three buses would use the Summerhill Road and the other three buses would use the Circular Road. I very much regret that when the bus operators tried to revert to the original arrangement last Monday, their passage was made impossible by the blocking of parts of the road leading into the school. The only ones who lost out on this were the unfortunate children whose only offence was to want to get to school.
In planning the building of the new community school in Carrick-on-Shannon the Department envisaged that the Summerhill Road would be used as the school bus route leading to the school. To facilitate the safe alighting and embarking by the students, the Department provided extensive footpaths and a set down point for school buses along the northern perimeter of the school site bordering the public road linking with the Summerhill Road. The cost of these works was £10,000. There were no objections whatsoever from local residents while this arrangement was being put in place. If buses were to use either of the alternative routes, then the designated set down point to the north of the school site would become unusable.
It has been suggested that the car park belonging to the sports complex situated to the south of the school should be used as a bus park venue. This proposal would entail a walk of 200 metres for the students. The sports complex in question is privately owned and is vested in trustees, whose permission would be required to allow for its use as a bus park. It is not known at this point if this would be forthcoming. The car park would also require resurfacing and other remedial works — at considerable further cost. In addressing the question of insurance in respect of the car park for use as a set down and pick up point for the students who travel to school by school bus, the question of extending the school insurance cover to the car park would have to be considered so as to indemnify the trustees from any insurance claims arising from any accidents or damage.
With regard to the community schools, the State provides a general indemnity to the authorities of these schools in lieu of their taking out insurance cover against liabilities which might arise. The State indemnity, however, does not extend beyond the perimeter of the school premises, except in circumstances where pupils are required to use premises outside the school grounds as part of the school curriculum. For example, in this particular case, the pupils of Carrick-on-Shannon community school use the sports complex for physical education purposes and this is covered by the State indemnity for the duration of their attendance there. In such circumstances, the school must arrange that there is adequate supervision of the students.
In view of the significant exposure which would be involved in extending the State indemnity to the car park, and having regard to the expense to which the Department has already gone in providing footpaths and set down points to secure the safety of pupils arriving at and departing from this school, together with the unsuitability of the Circular Road, I could not involve the Exchequer in any additional expenditure in this matter by extending the State indemnity.
I will consider Senator Mooney's suggestion that we appoint lollipop persons to deal with the road safety services. In view of what Senator Mooney has said tonight and what has already been said to me by Senator Reynolds and Deputy Ellis, I will certainly take on some of the points raised by the three representatives and I will ask that next week one of my officials visit the area and talk to a cross-section of interests and opinions in that area. I hope that at some stage we can come to a solution to this problem. I will certainly be as flexible and reasonable as I can but I have to adhere to the situation as it is set out at this stage. Certainly somebody will visit the area next week to deal with the people involved.
Once again I thank the Minister. It is as much as I would ever expect from Deputy Allen, whom I know for a long time. I am pleased that he acknowledged the representations made to him by my colleague, Senator Reynolds, and by Deputy Ellis in the other House because it is very much a consensus among the public representatives and the locals that this matter would be resolved.
In relation to the sports complex my understanding is that as the Minister quite correctly points out, it is privately owned, but that the trustees would be prepared to allow its use for a bus park. In regard to the question of the Circular Road being unsuitable, when the Minister's official visits the area it will give him, and subsequently the Minister, by extension, a better understanding of the geography of the area as the residents and others see it, and perhaps then the Minister might help to make up his mind and come to the conclusions we all hope will be the right ones in the long term. As the Minister quite correctly identified, it is ultimately the children who have to be accommodated here as much as anybody else.