A chara, – Our child’s school was moved to a new area, after years of campaigning for a permanent location. Following further pot-banging by the parents, the State undertook to provide our children with a bus to take them from the old location to the new location. Each parent paid the State for a bus ticket, which was duly received. On the eve of the new school term in September, we received an unsigned email from a Government department to say there would be no bus this week (but maybe next week). Each following week we received an email at 5pm on a Friday evening to tell us that, in the subsequent week, there would again be no bus. The emails also promised the parents a payment towards the cost of transport, the details of which we would receive from another Government department. No amount was ever confirmed, nor was anything ever received. Then the emails just stopped.
And that’s it. That’s the story. The chaos caused to the parents as a result of this failure simply drifts into the ether, together with a thousand other failures. Most are small, sure, but it’s the collective impact of these failures that cause people to arrive at the conclusion that the State really isn’t functioning for them. – Yours, etc,
PHILIP FLYNN,
Deansgrange,
Co Dublin.