An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-22
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Sarah O'Reilly (AON), Agricultural Panel

I too wish to be associated with the condolences to Senator Gerard Craughwell on the death of his wife, Helen, and also to the family of former Senator Enda Bonner.
Since the last few weeks of August, my office has been dealing with the school bus ticket chaos, as I call it. We have parents contacting us who cannot get their children on the bus to school. It is the same story every year, with parents desperately trying to find a solution when school comes back, bus drivers threatening to walk off the job and empty buses travelling past children standing along the side of the road. I have been dealing with families from Crosskeys, Shercock, Tierlahood, Laragh and Lurgan and from Emyvale in County Monaghan. The stress on parents, especially on families where both parents are working, is unbearable. They cannot take time off work and rearrange their lives indefinitely to drive their children to school. Bus Éireann has been offering a refund, but that does not resolve the problem. I know of parents who are putting their children on buses with no tickets, which is extremely stressful for the children, who are terrified that a bus inspector will inspect them. That is not a solution. I raised this issue in 2021, when there was a review of the school bus scheme, and the same thing was happening then. We have had that scheme and, in my view, nothing has changed or been achieved. The solution is more capacity. Bus Éireann has confirmed to me that the Minister has not approved any additional capacity this year to date. The school year starts in September. However, Bus Éireann knows the figures at the end of May because the applications for bus tickets close at the end of May. It is unacceptable that we have this mess every year in the week or so before school starts, when people get notification at the very last minute. We should have the Minister in the House to discuss this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-22