Free School Bus announcement a recipe for resentment – Sherlock

Labour spokesperson on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development,  Cork East TD, Seán Sherlock has today sharply criticised the Government’s  school transport waiver for the coming academic year saying it will mean little to hard pressed families who are still subject to the out-dated school transport system. The concessionary seat lottery remains as do stringent limits on distance from schools.

Deputy Sherlock said:

“This was a real chance for the Government to really show they are listening to hard pressed families facing down the barrel of a return to school cost increase. Instead we now will have families pitted against each other.

The upshot of the policy is that the big dairy farmer’s son five kilometres away from school gets a free ticket while the factory worker’s daughter 4.5km away can’t even get on the bus in the first place. 

We now have a complicated structure of a fee waiver, where some people have already paid and must await a refund, and others who have not paid yet await instructions. People left in the dark beyond a headline. No reform. Nothing concrete to support families staring at the fuel prices in forecourts with trepidation.

“There appears to be no movement on establishing universal transport and removing the distance barrier. The reality is now that families are faced, once more, with the annual August angst on whether they get a ticket or not. This will pit neighbour against neighbour within classrooms right across the country. It is unacceptable and just another example of the Government badly letting people down.”