School Transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 114,100 children, including over 14,700 children with special educational needs, are transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country at a cost of over €224.7m in 2020.
There are in the region of 490 staff deployed by Bus Éireann in the operation and administration of the school transport scheme and a key focus of the last 12 months has been the safe operation of school transport services in the current challenging Covid environment. There are over 6,500 vehicles currently providing School transport services on a daily basis.
Bus Éireann has been working closely with the Department to ensure additional safety protocols have been put in place on board services and in rolling out 50% capacity to cater for social distancing on post primary services. Bus Éireann continues to work with the Department of Education to meet the requirements of the scheme and to ensure the delivery of services in line with the current Service Level Agreement.
Bus Éireann has advised that they have no plans at present to engage in any voluntary severance scheme.
