Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 7 September 2018
300. Deputy Kevin O'Keeffe asked the Minister for Education and Skills if a full review of the school bus transport scheme will be carried out, in particular in regard to concessionary bus tickets in order that more seats can be made available in pressure-point areas (details supplied). [36223/18]
View answerSchool transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department.
The purpose of my Department's School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school.
In the 2017/18 school year over 117,000 children, including over 12,000 children with special educational needs, were transported in over 4,500 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million kilometres annually at a total cost of almost €190 million in 2017.
Children are generally eligible for school transport if they satisfy the distance criteria and are attending their nearest school.
Children who are eligible for school transport and who have completed the application process on time will be accommodated on school transport services where such services are in operation for the 2018/19 school year.
Children who are not eligible for school transport may apply for transport on a concessionary basis only and will be facilitated where spare seats are available after eligible children have been accommodated. Where the number of ineligible children exceeds the number of spare seats available Bus Éireann will allocate tickets for the spare seats using an agreed selection process.
Under the terms of the scheme, routes will not be extended or altered, additional vehicles will not be introduced, nor will larger vehicles or extra trips using existing vehicles be provided to cater for children travelling on a concessionary basis, no additional State cost will be incurred in covering the cost of providing school transport for children who are not eligible.
Arising from commitments in the Programme for Government, a review of the Concessionary Charges and Rules element of the School Transport Scheme was undertaken.
The review was published in December 2016 and made recommendations on both the charges and the rules element of concessionary school transport.
The report also recommended that the number of concessionary places should be reduced in line with the rules introduced in 2012 on a phased basis. Previous plans to advance this option were put on hold, pending the completion of the review.
However upon consideration of the review and following discussions with the Cross Party Working Group which I established to feed into the review, I decided that there should be no planned programme of downsizing in the coming year except in line with normal operational decisions within the current scheme.
The terms of the School Transport Scheme are applied equitably on a national basis.
