Gareth Scahill
Nominated by the Taoiseach · Fine Gael · Ireland
“Before we finish up I call for a debate on home care services when we come back in September. We all know the value of carers in our society but an awful lot of the HSE support service staff going into houses are private agency staff and when the person they are looking after goes into hospital or into respite the support they are getting…”
“Can we reset the clock? I will start by mentioning the "parents notify" portal on the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, website for special classes and special places, which has a deadline of 1 September.”
“Like previous speakers, the Leas-Chathaoirleach might allow me to thank the staff of the House, including the ushers and all the catering staff and, reluctantly, all of my colleagues in the House. We do not always get on or agree but there is great respect in the House.”
“I welcome the Minister to the House. Like so many of the previous speakers, it would be disingenuous of me not to concede I agree with some of the points in the motion.”
“The whole country has these facilities now, meaning that should we ever experience something like Storm Éowyn in 2025 again, we will have supports to allow people to continue to work remotely, provide for their families and live where they want to.”
“I do not believe one size fits all in Ireland. The Minister's county, my county and Longford are all in one big district and we have not benefited from additional Garda numbers in quite some time.”
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“In a totally unrelated way, I too want to raise the work of Croí here today. I was not at the information session Senator Rabbitte attended last week, but on Friday last I was involved in the first Croí 5 km run-walk held outside Galway as a fundraiser. The organisation's major fundraiser, which supported all the amazing work Senator Rabbitte spoke about, took place last Friday night in Salthill. We ran the first one to be held outside of Galway in County Roscommon and it was the first such event to be held there. As Senator Rabbitte said, Croí's mission is to prevent heart disease and strokes, save lives and empower and support families, communities and future generations to take control of their health and well-being. I highlight this particular event because events like these do not just happen overnight.”
“Far too often, families tell us the first time they hear the term SUDEP is when they see it on a loved one's death certificate. That cannot continue. While the exact cause of SUDEP is not fully understood, research shows uncontrolled seizures, not taking prescribed medication and alcohol or substance misuse can increase the risk. That means awareness, education and support can and will save lives. Today I would like to remember all the people who have died of this and join Epilepsy Ireland in calling for a debate on the urgent implementation of a national strategy to reduce epilepsy-related deaths in Ireland.”
“I, too, echo colleague's sentiments and unwavering support for the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris. I also echo my colleagues who have called this out for what it is and pointed out the Tánaiste is upstanding and hard-working, and has delivered in every role he has ever taken on. Today is SUDEP Action Day - sudden unexpected deaths in epilepsy day. SUDEP is one of the most devastating aspects of epilepsy. Thanks to research supported by Epilepsy Ireland, we know 33 people die of this in Ireland each year. When other epilepsy-related causes, such as prolonged seizures, injuries and drownings, are included, that number could rise to around 100 deaths annually. Behind each of those is a person, family and community changed forever.”
“We need to weigh some of the supports available for small businesses and there needs to be a lot more collaboration with other Departments. For example, the Department of rural and community development has a town centre first initiative to create public realms. As Senator Nelson Murray said, we cannot create initiatives that jeopardise small enterprises or take away parking spaces from businesses. The Minister's Department needs to support those businesses and make sure that initiatives cannot be introduced from other Departments that will take from them. I will let Senator O'Donovan take over on tourism.”
“That is directly related to the investment this country has made in research and development tax credits, and the 5% increase introduced in the budget. Indirectly, we have probably protected an awful lot more jobs with that initiative as well. I commend the Minister on that. We in this House constantly talk about supporting small businesses. Budget 2026 has strengthened regional development and supported our local enterprise offices. We have spoken continuously about the cost of business advisory forum and the small business unit, which are all welcome initiatives from the Minister's Department. I am very impressed with the national enterprise hub. How an initiative like that had not been thought of years ago is beyond me, but bringing it all together it is exactly what our businesses, especially small businesses, need.”
“The Minister stated, "Budget 2026 is a pro-enterprise budget that recognises the critical link between industrial development, infrastructure investment and job creation." In this volatile time, the focus was on protecting the 2.81 million jobs in our economy that we cannot take for granted. First and foremost, the reduction of the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% has straight away saved and protected 191,000 jobs that would probably be the most susceptible in a volatile economy. The Minister must be credited for that. I also welcome the research and development tax credit. To bring it down to a local idea, in Monksland in County Roscommon we have Novo Nordisk, an international company that announced large-scale job cuts recently enough. Thankfully, the Monksland site was exempted from a large percentage of those cuts.”
“I would like to see some of these reports that are published annually being used to help bring down the cost of people’s insurance. I call for a debate on that, if we get the chance. Reports like this should not be used as a stick to prevent counties like Roscommon and Longford from getting additional gardaí. We have one of the oldest populations in the country. Although we have a low crime rate, those people like to see feet on the ground and someone on the street. They like to know there is someone in the local station at the end of the phone when they make that call. I ask for a debate with the Minister with regard to the allocation of gardaí and the figures and reports people are using for that particular allocation.”
“I mention a particular issue, namely, a report that was published earlier today which ranks Roscommon as the highest tallied scorer, making it statistically the safest place in Ireland to raise a family in 2025. Leitrim, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Clare, Kilkenny, Longford and Galway all follow in the top ten. This is something that I have personally known about for years and something I have promoted for years, which is all the positive things we have in Roscommon. On the other side, however, when it comes to renewing my car and house insurance every year, I am hit with rising costs. I am told it is because of where I am living and that there are all of these impacts affecting my home and car insurance. Great work has been done by this Government in the area of insurance reform.”
“When I looked back at the apprenticeship review for the year, I saw that last year the increase in plasterers was 3%, the increase in plumbers was 13%, and the increase in apprenticeships in wood manufacturing and finishing was 3%. We need a targeted focus on increasing the number of apprenticeship places in order to achieve the targets for the 2030 plan. I also call for regional balance in the location of the apprenticeship places.”
“In tandem with welcoming that funding, I acknowledge that the Department of further and higher education has allocated €65 million in funding to ensure the critical skills requirement for the delivery of housing and infrastructure, as set out in the national development plan, is achieved. This funding will allow for increased apprenticeship registrations and will help us to move forward on targets to achieve 12,500 apprenticeships annually by 2030, as set out in the programme for Government. In that regard, I call for a debate in this House, possibly inviting the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, or the Minister, Deputy James Lawless, to discuss how we are going to achieve that. The allocation of this money is much needed, including for apprenticeship places.”
“Like my colleague before me, I welcome Senator Andrews back. I cannot wait to hear the stories about his ordeal. It is good to see him return safely. Following on from the budget, I want to acknowledge the €130 million in grants for older people for housing adaptations; the €140 million for the retrofitting of social homes; the €558 million in funding for residential and community energy schemes from the SEAI, including the warmer homes scheme; the better energy home scheme; the national home energy upgrade and retrofitting scheme; and the community energy grant scheme.”
“I had a Commencement matter this morning on Storm Amy. I failed to acknowledge and recognise the staff of the local authority who worked all weekend across Roscommon and the west cleaning up the mess, along with the staff from the ESB and the forestry management services. I want to congratulate them now and thank them for doing this work in difficult times. I also want to congratulate the 72,833 people who are receiving their junior certificate results this morning. They will be visiting school to get their results and later they will be able to get them online. I want to congratulate them and wish them every success in the future.”
“In the last line of the Minister's press statement it states, "The legislation and the regulations it will enable will strike an appropriate balance – between infrastructure resilience, the viability of the forestry sector, environmental impact and control of costs." We are looking for that to happen in a timely manner. We want action now.”
“I thank the Minister of State very much for the response. A total of 768,000 customers were without electricity in February. We face another winter with the same uncertainty. Probably the only certainty is the chance that we will have power outages. I could bring anybody in the Chamber to forestry in west Roscommon right now and show them which trees are going to come down and take out which power lines and knock out which group of people in the coming weeks. My constituents and the people of the west deserve to get support on this. They deserve a network that is resilient and our efforts to rectify this problem, which everybody spoke about in February and March but, as of this moment in time, we are still facing another winter with the same problem.”
“I have also been in contact with Coillte regarding this matter, and they have confirmed that ESB Networks is responsible for managing vegetation around power lines. I do not believe that is the case. A multi-agency approach is required. We need to enact this plan and we need to be strong on this. I welcome the Minister of State's statement on the matter.”
“This is now the second time [since August] this has happened on this section of the line. The same stretch was damaged during Storm Floris in August when forestry trees fell on the line. Then, during the storm in January, a feeder line from this main line was also brought down in the forestry due to falling trees. In total, the local area has been without electricity for over three and a half weeks ... [so far this year]. While we all understand that storms are outside anyone's control, what is within the control of ESB Networks is the management and removal of trees that are too close to power lines. It is clear that these trees continue to pose a serious and ongoing threat. Unless this is addressed, the next storm will undoubtedly cause the same problem again.”
“We must deliver on this. The 29 July press release referred to the winter 2025 grid resilience plan. One of the calls in that regard is for "a formal storm review to identify recommendations to prepare for future storms". It is too late for that. We cannot wait for another review on this. This is a problem people are experiencing on the ground today and it must be prioritised. An emergency must be declared in Roscommon or the western part of the country to deal with this. Everybody knows the problem. I have a letter from a lady I met on Monday. She was going around to her neighbours trying to get them to sign it before sending it in. I will not give her name. Once again, over the weekend, power lines were brought down where they run through forestry in our local area.”
“I have a press release from 29 July 2025 with a headline stating that the Minister has secured Government approval for legislation to bolster the storm resilience of our electricity grid. I know we are only back, but it is now 8 October and a large number of people across the western part of this country are looking at the next storm in the coming weeks and wondering how long they are again going to be without power. I spent Friday morning visiting people in Ballinlough outside Roscommon who were without power. I engaged with Deputy Fitzmaurice throughout the weekend about the large number of people without power all across Roscommon. Deputy Kerrane has social media posts with pictures showing these corridors. We all know where the problem is. The ESB needs support for it. We need to enact this Bill. We must compensate forestry owners.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber this morning. This is my fifth Commencement matter for the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and he has not entered the Chamber at all yet. I just want to put that on the record. We have just had Storm Amy and a lot of my constituents in Roscommon once again spent the weekend without power. That follows on from Storm Éowyn back in February when 768,000 customers across the country were without electricity supply because of that storm. On the August bank holiday weekend Storm Floris, on which we had a small little yellow weather warning, also left a large part of west Roscommon without power. The common denominator is the corridors we have in forestry and the need for the electricity supply (amendment) Bill 2025 to be prioritised and enacted as quickly as possible.”
“All Senators will have received in recent days a newsletter from the Irish Postmasters Union stating that budget 2026 will decide the future of Ireland's post office network. I am sure all Senators will stand up after me and compliment the €15 million in additional funding to support the post office network. I commend the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport, Deputy O'Donovan, on putting that in place.”
“I would welcome the opportunity to engage on that issue. We in this Chamber have spoken on numerous occasions about, and have fought for, a decrease in the hospitality VAT rate. I welcome its reduction to 9%, which will protect 191,000 jobs in small businesses across the country from 1 July 2026. We must welcome measures such as that. In response to something that was said from across the Chamber, this budget also represents an increase in the total spend for disability services by €680 million to €3.8 billion, which is an increase of 20%. This will fund disability services for an additional 90,000 people. Another measure that came up numerous times in recent months has not been mentioned yet.”
“I would also like to see increased staff numbers in Castlerea Prison as a result of that particular measure. On education, I welcome the additional funding for medical and nursing training places. An additional 1,100 places will be delivered, which is an increase of 25%. I note that the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Lawless, has included an additional €65 million to enable a further 1,250 apprenticeship registrations. I have raised the matter of an apprenticeship centre for Roscommon since I came into this House. It has been in the ether since 2018 or 2019. With the additional funding for retrofitting homes and older person retrofits, we need more people. What is holding back delivery in that sector at the moment is the lack of tradespeople on the ground.”
“On housing, I particularly welcome the additional €130 million in grants for older people for house adaptions. I also welcome €140 million in retrofitting for social homes. I will raise an issue in that regard when I move to further education. The additional €33 million funding to complete the national broadband plan is welcome. Over 400,000 homes, farms and businesses can now connect to high-speed broadband through the national broadband plan. In respect of building stronger, safer communities, I welcome the €77 million for recruiting 1,000 additional gardaí and 200 civilian Garda staff. I hope that counties such as Roscommon and Longford, to which Senator Flaherty referred a moment ago, can avail of some additional gardaí through that particular measure. I also welcome the €39 million for the phased recruitment of 150 prison staff.”
“I welcome that we are helping with the cost of living with the inclusion of a €2 billion package of social protection measures. I welcome the €10 increase for pensioners, carers, people with disabilities and illness payments. It is very welcome to see the carer's allowance means test disregard has been increased substantially. This is an issue that everybody who participated in the general election met at the doors. The threshold for single people has gone from €375 to €1,000. For couples it has gone from €750 to €2,000. This is very welcome and looks after this particular area. Working family payment thresholds have increased by €60. Anyone in receipt of the working family payment will also receive the fuel allowance, which has increased by €5 to €38 per week. All of those measures are welcome.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to give us the opportunity to make statements on the budget. I compliment him and his Cabinet colleagues on the delivery of the budget. To remind people, budget 2026 is worth €9.4 billion, €8.1 billion of which is spending and €1.3 billion is tax. It represents increased spending of 7%. Through budget 2026 we will provide as much certainty as possible in a turbulent world. This is a Government that has based itself on fiscal responsibility. We have steered the economy through successive crises, restoring the economy after the property crash, securing a good Brexit deal, protecting the economy during Covid and supporting people through the cost-of-living crisis.”
“I would welcome a debate that looks at this and multiple other systems to make them more age-friendly so that people of a certain age would have reassurance in the systems that are in place to support them with information during times of power outages, storms and various warnings.”
“Since Storm Éowyn and numerous other power outages in recent months, I have been on that system 20, 24, or 25 times. I have to put in my MPRN and my mobile phone number every time in order to get the information. It strikes me, looking at this from the digital divide and age-friendly side of things, that a large percentage of people over a certain age would have trouble typing in an 11-digit number and a mobile phone number into an app to get answers. The ESB says there is a GDPR issue here. I suggest that when someone has done it once, they should be on list whereby they are notified of the status if their neighbour sends in an alert about a power outage. That would provide certainty.”
“I wish to raise an issue following Storm Amy last Friday. We were protected up here in Leinster but in other parts of Ireland there were widespread power outages and issues with Irish Water and the water supply. I was dealing with this all across the weekend because hundreds of people and households were affected by power outages. I made phone calls to PowerCheck and the ESB yesterday with regard to reporting issues with power outages and the notifications that people get. For those who are not familiar, a person needs to put in their 11-digit MPRN to receive an alert when there is a power outage in their area. They then put in their phone number and they receive notifications of the status of the power outage and when it is expected to be resolved.”
“The vast majority of visitors come to this country and, having visited numerous places, what they bring away with them is the people they met and the service they experienced in these sectors.”
“Every Member of this House will have met numerous representative bodies from that sector. In a time of constant cost increases hitting the sector, this is an important measure which will ensure the sustainability and survival of many businesses in the sector. We all wait with bated breath to see what happens on Tuesday. It is important for the survival of rural businesses in particular. I am not so supportive of it hitting the big multinationals that have numerous branches throughout the country. I would love a targeted measure to be introduced. If that cannot be introduced and the system is too rigid to do something like that, we need to look at small coffee shops and the food and hospitality sector.”
“I like the sound of the clean export guarantee tariff and trying to support our businesses with that. At the moment, SMEs can get up to 60% funding for solar panels and sustainable initiatives, but it is predominantly for their own use rather than for the export tariff. If they plan to produce more energy, they are not able to get the grants for it. We need to support small businesses in tapping into this area and it will benefit us as a country because it will help us hit our climate action targets. The key is energy independence and additional revenue streams to support our businesses. That is not just SMEs and retail. It will also benefit our farming community. I hope next week we will have word on the reduced VAT rate, on which this House has had extensive discussions.”
“Through our enterprise offices, we can scale up supports and help small businesses digitise, decarbonise and expand into new markets. By 2029, the aim is to have 1,700 more Irish exporters, with small firms playing a leading role in achieving that. I welcome what the Minister of State said about the target of 300,000 extra jobs in that sector. There are lots of things happening. The Minister of State mentioned the €400 million paid out to the sector in the increased cost of business grant over the past 12 months. The Power Up grant has been extended for people who had miscategorised themselves in the initial round. That was called for in this House so I welcome that. The next phase will be supporting businesses into new revenue streams and helping them change so we are able to meet our national targets.”
“Since its launch, the hub has directly assisted 6,500 SMEs and attracted more than 220,000 users, helping to cut through red tape and ensuring that more companies benefit from the wide range of supports available to them. It is important how that is worded. It is about cutting through red tape and making supports available. The supports are there for many of these businesses but many SMEs would need to take on a consultant to access and find the relevant supports for what they are trying to achieve. I commend that initiative. The Minister of State commended the local enterprise offices and I am sure everyone who stands up today will acknowledge the great work of those offices. They are supported now by the national enterprise hub.”
“I am struck by how dynamic our small business sector is and how people within it can react so quickly and implement things that are necessary for them to survive. If we consider the system here in Leinster House, it is a much bigger juggernaut in the context of actually making changes that will have an impact for those SMEs. The Minister of State spent a little more than ten minutes talking about all the positive things that have been implemented. I commend the Department on them. I am very impressed with the national enterprise hub. It is a one-stop shop for the SME sector to access all the resources and all of the available supports and grants in one place. It is such a simple idea, it seems mad to think it had not been introduced before. I commend the Department on it in any event.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming to discuss this very important issue. Small businesses and retailers are the very heart, as he said, of our economy. They make up the majority of the businesses in our country, employing two thirds of our workforce. As the Minister of State mentioned, they are the lifeblood and part of the fabric of our towns and communities. they hold everything together. The headline or overarching message here today is resilience. If we consider what our SMEs have done in the past 15 or 20 years, I do not believe there is an example of a more resilient community anywhere. They managed through the downturn and dealt with Brexit and Covid-19. Many of them are still standing and deserve massive credit for that. I come from a small, rural, family business.”
“I believe we need to learn from these lessons and provide constituents with the assurances that we have taken every possible measure to prepare for the forthcoming season. I support Deputy Micheál Carrigy's call for this earlier this week. Deputy Carrigy is the Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage . It is timely that this report and review should be published.”
“I raise the issue of the impending storms that are about to hit the west at the weekend. The review into the co-ordinated response into Storm Éowyn needs to be published and made available to us before the forthcoming storm season kicks in. Not enough has been done to ready the western part of the country for the next season of storms. We still have many broadband lines that are down and leaning against hedges. Electrical wires have been repaired but a permanent solution has not been put in place for them. I do not believe the network is resilient enough to ready us for the forthcoming storm season. More than 7,600 houses were without power after Storm Éowyn in February. Some were for a few hours but many were for a few days and others for a few weeks.”
“If the Minister had been here, I was also going to ask if age-friendly housing could be included in the discussion, because I think that would open up the town as well. I will follow up with the Minister and his Department. I thank the Minister of State for coming in today.”
“We cannot wait for this to be a more expensive project in a few years' time. Every plan has produced and has suggested this. Seeking NRA funding for the process of development of this scheme was suggested in the 2013 plan. I, as a layperson, contacted the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, in December 2023 about this project. I made a proposal to him and produced maps. I forwarded that work to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, in August of this year. I have not got a response on that yet. With all of the positive schemes that are out there, I cannot see why there cannot be a more joined-up approach to this. We are participants, as I said, in the town centre first scheme. That would be the perfect time to highlight that this is a growing need and it is a necessity at this stage.”
“We know the money has been allocated for the N5. I take on board what the Minister of State said about engaging with the local authority. When the TII conversation came before the councillors, it was a matter of taking all or none of the safety measures. As a result of the lack of engagement on the ground, none of the measures was taken on board. However, the roads engineer in Roscommon said at the time that if we were to try to look at a ring road or a float road in Castlerea we would be looking at an eight-to-ten year project. That was two years ago and nothing has happened since, as the Minister of State has outlined. That is very disappointing to hear. The right time to do this, and the most cost-effective time to do it, was 20 years ago. The second right time to do this is now.”
“The majority of people from two different sides of the town identified that as the most dangerous area for them crossing the road. Be it in cars or on foot, all the service users with the Brothers of Charity Services highlighted that as a major issue. I welcome a discussion on this.”
“We are lucky in Castlerea to be national beneficiaries and involved in the town centre first plans. We are looking into opening up our town and making it more accessible and easier for the demographic that lives in the area, the majority of whom are older. We have one of the highest percentages of over-55s in the country. We need to make our town accessible to people. I would very much welcome an inclusion in the national development plan, NDP, to explore the strategy for our relief road or to do a scheme on Hell's Kitchen corner in Castlerea that makes the town flow an awful lot easier and make it a lot more accessible. Recently, I did a walkability assessment with the Brothers of Charity Services in Castlerea.”
“It did not consult with the people and businesses of the town and the people who were using it. There are many examples of monitoring traffic trends and coming up with a solution without understanding the traffic trends. That is what I would like to engage with, and I encourage that there be engagement. Today is about coming up with a strategy for the N60. When I was young fella in the early eighties, there was talk of a ring road or relief road around Castlerea. In the county development plan from 2013 to 2018, there was talk of exploring a strategy for a ring road or float road around Castlerea. None of these strategies or plans ever materialised. However, what we know from the TII's plan is that 70% of the traffic that goes through Castlerea passes directly through the town. The national road goes through Castlerea. It does not stop.”
“I hope people do not have any trouble getting there, though, because the N60 goes through Castlerea and there is going to be an increased amount of traffic coming off the N5 into Castlerea for people who wish to access towns such as Williamstown, Dunmore and Ballyhaunis. Castlerea is already a town that suffers significantly at certain times in the day at the intersection, which we know as "Hell's Kitchen corner" but is officially the R361 road where the N60 junction is. In the past two years, there was a plan by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, to introduce safety measures and a scheme that would allow the traffic to flow easier at that junction. An investment of just under €1 million was made available. TII produced a plan, but it was a take it or leave it plan.”
“I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber. I welcome the students from St. Paul's College. I am sure the Cathaoirleach will make an announcement before they leave. I raise an issue that is very important in the area I am from, Castlerea in west Roscommon, which is to prioritise the upgrading of the N60 national road through Castlerea. With the imminent completion of the N5 project - the extension from Scramoge to Tibohine, representing an investment by the Government of over €450 million - everyone will be heading to Roscommon at some stage in the coming months to cut a ribbon.”
“Perhaps something could be put in place so that we have a longer lead-in, or maybe when infrastructural projects are implemented, we engage at a much earlier stage with schools that are affected by these. That was an additional problem that I was not expecting. I was expecting no capacity or the concessionary tickets, not that a bus could not pick people up because a road was being closed. I know that when that particular project gets to its second phase, there will be an additional road closed and I am going to need to get it resolved again in two or three months' time. Perhaps we could build that resilience into the system so that we are engaging, communicating and bringing the people who are using these services along with us.”
“They knew that project was happening for the past 18 months because they have been planning for it, yet schools only found out in September, three days before the route was going to stop, that the students were not going to be picked up in Frenchpark. That took a lot of engagement from local councillors and me with the Minister of State's Department and Bus Éireann. However, people from Bus Éireann still had to go out and investigate and take an extra week to make sure the routes we were suggesting were suitable to pick up those students. That meant certain students - six to ten students - did not make school on that particular week in September because they had no other way of getting to school. The reason they were using the school transport system is that they had no transport.”
“If people were engaged with at an earlier stage, they would be able to support and make Bus Éireann aware of these changes rather than having to appeal them three months after they have been implemented. Another pet peeve I have is that when buses and routes are up and running we, as a State, are implementing large-scale infrastructural projects and all of a sudden, a school is finding out three or four days beforehand that the bus will not be able to pick up certain students because of infrastructural projects. These are not things that happen three or four days beforehand. I refer to large infrastructural projects like, let us say, the N5 between Roosky and Tibohine in my native County Roscommon.”
“I would also like if there was some sort of account taken of certain students, because the ones we seem to get more appeals for every September are those for whom there is a special case, such as that mentioned by the previous speaker where there was a family funeral and they were not able to get there. I have had experience where there have been deaths within families, and then there are one-parent families who have issues where they have to leave one of the kids in the house while they go off to meet a new bus route two hours earlier than they have to bring the smaller child to crèche services. The changing bus routes are not necessarily picking up any additional people; they might be doing it three or four minutes quicker. They are the sorts of stories we are hearing. They do not make sense.”
“It took three months of going over and back with Bus Éireann directly before it actually took it on board and engaged with the process. It was able to see that rather than two buses travelling 40% of their routes along the same route where one of the buses was not picking up any students, it made a lot more sense to do a wider loop and create a safer place in a smaller village to actually pick up students. That has been implemented. I thank the Minister of State for his intervention in that case because it made sense. However, we should not have to spend three months having to justify sense and sustainability and journeys that make sense and pick up more students.”