School Transport
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-10
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

I thank the Senator for her question. Bus escorts who travel on school buses do amazing work and have huge responsibility, but they love their job. I meet them on a number of mornings during the week and see the work they are doing. The Senator asked about pay for those working in special schools. I know full well the extraordinary work being done in special schools the length and breadth of the country by school leadership, teachers and SNAs.
Of course, we have the discussion about the co-ordination of the buses. Personally, I am not in favour of putting an overarching body over a number of special schools and then having that centralised because the autonomy has to be within the school. There is such a huge cohort and a strong unit within the special schools. I understand the point the Senator makes, which is about the amount of work that is there for the principals and the deputy principals to co-ordinate that and that they are making sure that they have school bus escorts recruited and that they are deployed in terms of their availability and so forth each day. There is a whole series of work being done there, and I know that that is extra work they do as part of their administrative role. The administration of it is brought up with us at each and every special school we visit and indeed at schools with a number of special classes. They would have buses coming in as well, and the co-ordination of it is important, as is making sure we have a system in place. It is important as well, however, that we keep the autonomy of the individual schools. Sometimes if we create another layer of bureaucracy in the system, it is not as close to the school, to the child, to the parent or to the school community. That is my own personal opinion on it. We have done a lot of work in relation to the school bus escorts and, as the Senator quite rightly pointed out, the salaries have been increased over the past while, which is very welcome. We are working to engage further in terms of making sure there is a proper system in place.
As regards the issue the Senator raised about summer, Christmas and Easter, first of all, it is an issue for the Department of Social Protection. Be that as it may, however, it is important that we understand that we must protect the school bus escorts, who are an integral part of the special classes and the special schools, and ensure we can simplify the process for them. The Senator referred in her opening remarks to the repeated form-filling. It is challenging and it is seen as over-bureaucratic and just ticking the boxes for the sake of it. I think there is something we need to look at there. There are people within the Department of Social Protection who would say that there were other professionals working within the school system heretofore, but it is important that we try to simplify the system where people can get their benefits without having the constant form-filling and the delay within the system. Year on year, they will apply for social welfare during the various breaks. The Senator spoke to me at the Oireachtas joint committee and this was something we took away. It is also something we have discussed with school leadership around the country in the various special schools we have visited over the past 12 months to get their feedback and their ideas on it. I seriously pay tribute to all those who are working within special schools for the amazing work they do.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10