Earlier this year the Government announced, to another fanfare, that it would give free school transport to everyone. That has caused untold trouble, unease and anguish for everybody. The Government must have known that the system was not fit for purpose in any case and has not been for a long number of years and now it is chaos. The fact is that 15,000 children are now being shut out completely, some of whom had places or concessionary tickets. This has caused absolute bedlam but the Government wanted to announce it and praise it. No thought went into it at all and it has had an adverse effect on school transport. Things are far worse now than they were any other year and they were bad enough previously. What is the Government going to do to correct the unholy mess it has created for pupils who cannot get places on school buses?

First of all, as part of our response to the cost-of-living issue, we waived all fees for the school transport scheme. The measure is saving families up to €650 and the Deputy calls that a mess.

It is a mess.

It is saving families €650 and the Deputy's response is that it is a mess.

The Government has made a mess of it.

Some €280 million is being provided. More than 124,000 tickets have issued-----

Where are the buses? Where are the drivers?

That is an increase of 21,000 over last year. That is good news. There have been challenges with the scheme but the bottom line is that we did not hang around here. There was a cost-of-living crisis and we said we will move to reduce it for families and get rid of the fee, and we did. Of course, this created issues this September-----

Where are the bus drivers and buses?

The Department is working and Bus Éireann is doing everything it can to process applications and issue tickets as soon as extra buses and drivers are sourced.

The Government could not do a thing for them.

The alternative would have been to do nothing.

The Government does nothing most of the time.