A group of parents on the edge of the West Kerry Gaeltacht are campaigning for what they claim are equal rights to free transport to English-speaking secondary schools for their children.
Children in Anascaul, Co Kerry, are educated in primary school through English. But for secondary school education, they are only eligible to attend the all-Irish secondary schools in Dingle under the post-primary transport scheme.
However, a majority of children from the village each year choose to go to English-speaking schools in Tralee or Milltown or Killorglin, to continue their education. They have to pay up to €12 per child each week for public transport. Families with two or more children face weekly bills of up to €24 on top of term tickets of up to €51.
"We have nothing against Irish. Our children learn Irish. It's the right of our children to be able to continue their education in the language they started with and that is English," Ms Deirdre O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the parents' group, said.
They have now instituted legal proceedings to argue that the same provisions for English as for Irish be made.
Several letters to the Department of Education have gone unanswered.
However, they have the backing of Dr Barney O'Reilly of the Kerry Education Service.
The anomaly has existed for 40 years. Last year only three of the 13 children leaving Anascaul National School chose to go to the Irish secondary schools in Dingle, and all others went to English-speaking schools.
Whereas English-speaking children must attend their nearest centre geographically, there are special arrangements for pupils attending all-Irish post-primary schools under the schools' transport scheme.
Pupils who wish to obtain their post-primary education entirely through Irish may be allowed transport to the nearest centre in which there is a secondary, vocational, comprehensive or community school providing such education.
In other words, if the nearest all-Irish secondary school were in Tralee or elsewhere 20 miles away, then the children of Anascaul would be entitled to travel under the transport scheme.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said yesterday that for the purposes of the post-primary education scheme, the country has been divided into catchment areas, each of which has its own post-primary centre.
In order to be eligible for transport under the terms of the post-primary school transport scheme, pupils must reside at least three miles from, and be attending their nearest appropriate post-primary centre.
She said exceptions were made for pupils wishing to attend all-Irish secondary schools and for pupils of Protestant denomination.