School Transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education.
In the 2019/20 school year over 120,000 children, including over 14,200 children with special educational needs, were transported in over 5,000 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million kilometres at a cost of over €219m in 2019.
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.
School Transport Scheme services for the 2020/21 school year commenced on the 26th August. All children who are eligible for school transport and who completed the application and payment process on time have been accommodated on school transport services for the 2020/21 school year where such services are in operation.
Bus Éireann has confirmed the details for the number of post primary school transport ticket holders in County Kerry for each academic year since 2015 to 2020/2021 and this is set out in tabular format in the table.
YEAR
|
MAINSTREAM POST PRIMARY TICKETS ISSUED
|
2015/2016
|
3152
|
2016/2017
|
3088
|
2017/2018
|
3120
|
2018/2019
|
3097
|
2019/2020
|
3178
|
2020/2021
|
2872
|