29 Mr. Blaney asked the Minister for Education if she will reconsider her Department's refusal to extend school transport to accommodate a young girl (details supplied) in County Donegal who has a medical condition which prevents her from walking the two-mile distance to the pick-up point for the bus to Buncrana vocational school; and if she will either sanction the extension of the service or subsidise the cost of private transport in view of the medical evidence supplied by the child's consultant paediatrician. [13580/95]

An extension of a school transport service to enable a child to be picked up and set down at home may only be considered where the child is severely medically handicapped and the condition is such as to prevent the child from making his or her own way to the pick-up point. The same conditions apply to payment of medical grants towards the cost of private transport arrangements from a child's home to the pick-up point or to the school. On the basis of medical evidence submitted, my Department's, medical adviser has determined that these conditions do not apply to the child to whom the Deputy refers. As this child is already availing of a reasonable level of service in the context of the general operation of the scheme and as the medical adviser has confirmed that the relevant conditions do not apply, it would not be open to my Department either to extend the service, or to pay a medical grant towards the cost of private transport arrangements.