BUS Eireann has come under fire for continually cutting and reinstating a specialist transportation service which brings an autistic child between his home and respite care.

The parents of teenager Liam Lawless (15) say the service has been cut numerous times since last April and they can never get straight answers why.

In an 11th hour u-turn last Friday, Bus Eireann said it had found a way to guarantee yet another return to the service from the end of the month.

But the Lawless family remains unimpressed, insisting the service is continually being cut and reinstated with little or no notice.

Liam's family sprung to national prominence in 1997 with a High Court legal battle to make the state recognise his requirement for special needs education.

In a new battle, they have criticised Bus Eireann, which provides the service, for continually changing his travel arrangements.

The special bus service brings children to and from their homes and their school in Cabra.

However, one day each week it is required to bring Liam to his respite home beside the Beaumont Hospital instead of returning to his home in Donabate, north Dublin.

"Liam is picked up by a taxi with two or three other kids with special needs and the special needs assistant who stays with them in the school and then goes home with them again," explained Derek Lawless.

"But Bus Eireann, which controls the taxi, said that they would bring the kids home but not to respite.

"They say that if the taxi man goes off his route he is not insured. He is either insured or he is not. He could not be insured to drive up one road and not another."

He says the situation makes little sense as his son's respite home beside Beaumont Hospital is closer to the Cabra school than to his own home in Donnabate.

Last Thursday the family was told once again that the service had to be cut for funding reasons. The following day they were told that the service was being returned at the end of the month.

While they have welcomed the latest return of the service, they say it is only a matter of time before it is cut again.

Respite care is crucial to the family so that they can spend some down time together while Liam is looked after by professional carers.

"You can just sit down and relax and you don't have to worry what he is doing upstairs. If you ask anyone with special needs kids, do you want respite, they will chop your hand off," said Lawless. "Since Liam has gone to respite, one thing that has improved is his social skills because he is in a house with other kids with autism."