Rural families are enduring “severe hardship and undue distress” as a result of the implementation of the school bus transport policy, a Labour Senator has claimed.
Senator John Whelan believes up to 10,000 mainly rural students could be affected by the “over-officious and bureaucratic” implementation of the policy.
According to Mr Whelan, the system is run in a “letter-of- the-law” manner which could prevent siblings from attending the same schools and force some students into schools in neighbouring parishes.
He called on Minister of State Ciarán Cannon to take action on “bureaucracy gone haywire”.