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.

I want to join in the expressions of condolence.

I agree on the issue of buses. I have been hearing about the school bus issues. I request that the Leader would arrange a debate in the House on public transport. Many people were shocked to see that at a time when we should be doubling down and increasing our public transport, when we know we are facing an environmental crisis and when fuel prices are going up, instead of increasing capacity in our public transport system, including our public school transport system, we are looking to increase the costs and increase the charges that people are paying. We have heard the statistics that when these costs increase, fewer people use public transport. It is a wildly counterintuitive measure to be taking at this time. I would like a debate on transport.

I also note that as we are coming back today, we can see the rooms filling up, but people are missing today as the schools and colleges start.

Students from Gaza who have full scholarships, are fully supported, have met every academic bar, have funding in order to attend colleges, have overcome unimaginable obstacles coming out of Gaza - a place where every university has been destroyed and bombed - and who have managed to achieve the offers of places and scholarships in Irish universities are being blocked by the Department of justice. I would like the Minister to come in to explain that issue. He could also explain his remarkable lack of progress on the issue of criminal legal aid.

I also note that we are moving the writ for the Seanad by-election. I care a lot about the Seanad and think it has an extraordinary contribution to make to politics. One thing I have seen over recent times that I regret is the fact that for two or three Seanads in the time I have been here, we moved from having Independent Members, civil society and voices from Northern Ireland and from the idea that we would try to bring a different sense of civil society, expert voices and diverse voices into the Seanad to contribute to the debate and scrutiny we carry out in terms of legislation. I would love if this by-election became an opportunity to bring back that focus on the voices that might be different, that might bring something different to the work we do and that might add something new to what we are doing. I believe the Seanad should not simply be a staging post for the Dáil and a focus on the Dáil. It is fine if people move their ambitions to the other House after being here but when we are collectively deciding on a new addition, it would be good if we were to think in terms of what will directly and specifically contribute to our collective work and be open to that idea.