By now everyone has watched the short video of minister Ryan caught sleeping during a vote in the Dail, seems he must have been sleeping again when he was informed of the McInerney interview because he was extremely ill prepared. If you need proof of a minister who is way out of his depth you only have to listen back to this 20 minute interview.
Here, regarding School transport, is a short excerpt from the interview...
Sarah. “School transport is a big one (Contradiction). Parents are very worried, piling kids onto buses where there is no social distancing. What is going to happen there?”
Ryan. “Government accepted the recommendations of NPHET. The need for us to try and ensure safety in all our different transport systems...what is said is we'll have to look at that further. We are proceeding as planned with the opening of our schools that in terms of provision of additional services to meet the specific NPHET recommendations, we said we are going to have to work on that. We don't have provision today to what would effectively require a doubling of the public transport fleet or the changing of the time system, so rather than saying no to that or rather than just commissioning something where we didn't have a clear mechanism to deliver it we said in that case that we wanted to review it.”
Sarah. “So you agree in principle that students should be socially distancing on public transport?”
Ryan. “Yes, of course”
Sarah. “Then how could we find ourselves with just a week to schools opening that the government are telling us they have to look at whether or not we have the capacity to increase enough public transport for schools. That students would be able to socially distance. How have we left this til now?“
Ryan. “There's a whole range of different issues that we have to get right of our schools and it will vary between different circumstances, between primary schools and secondary schools. In terms of the advice on that, public schools or public bus service, that only arrived yesterday and the government said okay, we're going to ask the department of health and education to liaise with public authorities to see how we could deliver it, that's,...that is, some times, eh...was it Mike Ryan said, “speed rather than perfection”, and sometimes events can be over coming. The recent spike in the recent weeks is calling on government and all sorts of people”...
Sarah interrupts the rambling minister who has clearly lost the run of himself, he tries to interject by saying, “let me finish” but, Sarah was having none of it.
Sarah. “Can I just ask you minister, as minister for transport, did you do anything in the last couple of months to see was there capacity there to make sure that our students and our children would be able to socially distance on school buses when they are going to school or have you just asked that question now, a week before the schools are going to open?”
Ryan. “No, we are going, what I was looking to see, do we have additional bus services, there wasn't any clear... the answer to that was no, but following the NPHET advice, which only arrived yesterday, I’ve contacted my department to see can we look further to see what we can do and gave that advice to cabinet yesterday and that was part of the decision where we said we're going to have to go back and see again what we can do.”
Sarah. “When can we expect an answer in relation to that. Parents listening, who are really worried about putting their children on a bus, sitting directly beside someone with a mask or without a mask, a crowded bus. When can they expect an answer as to when they'll get socially distancing buses?”
Ryan. “That has to be in the coming week. Those sort of arrangements we're going to have to look at to do what’s possible.”
This man is the minister for transport!
The decision was made months ago that, come hell or high water, schools would be starting back at the end of August. Eamonn Ryan has done nothing in this regard. Getting children to and from school safely should have been his priority, one of those school children, a thirteen year old, could tell you that. Ryan decided to hibernate and when asked about it, decided it was the job of NPHET. They only told him about it yesterday!!
Anyway, the ineptitude since this government took office only a couple of months ago could fill multiple pages, the interview tells you all you need to know about the total incompetence of this minister. The fact that he was asked the same question three times within twenty minutes before a semi coherent answer was given says it all.
Below is an email for taxi drivers to copy and paste and send on to eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie
Do this today, let this minister receive the same email from a couple of thousand drivers, it might get him to address the current plight of taxi drivers, a copy will be sent on to other ministers so they can give him a nudge and tell him to act on it.
Of course, if you don't agree with the email, you don't have to send it, it's just an attempt to get this industry back on it's feet, as they say in Tesco's "every little helps"
Comments or questions to taxisincrisis@gmail.com
eamon.ryan@oireachtas.ie
19/08/2020
Dear minister Ryan,
Having listened to your interview on national radio 19/08/2020 it has become clear that you do not have a concrete plan regarding school transport.
As a licenced taxi driver I would like to put forward the proposal that you consider using taxis in any plan for getting children to and from school. Taxis could be used in conjunction with the normal school bus fleet in order to facilitate social distancing etc. Most taxis have fitted a safety screen and carry disinfectant cleaning equipment and could safely carry three people from one family or two from separate families.
As you are no doubt aware, a lot of taxi drivers are presently receiving the unemployment pandemic payment or are struggling to earn a living on the streets. Wouldn't it be a better use of government funds to utilize the taxi fleet for school runs and continue to pay them the pandemic allowance, thus, saving the state a substantial amount by not having to increase the bus fleet and allowing taxi drivers, whose business has been decimated, to work whilst having a guaranteed income?
I have discussed this with my taxi driving colleagues and we all consider it a good way for drivers to help out in the community, as we do, annually, with the children's day out.
If the decision on this is positive it is requested that taxi radio companies should not be used to distribute the work as they will charge individual drivers a weekly fee to be on their books and a lot of drivers prefer not to be with a company.
Yours sincerely,
Your name
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