Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 July 2022
466. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Education the number of applications in Mayo for school transport each year since 2016, including the 2022-2023 academic year; the number of school transport places provided since 2016; the estimated number that will be provided for the 2022-2023 academic year, in tabular form. [39373/22]
View answerSchool Transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 121,400 children, including over 15,500 children with special educational needs, are transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. The cost in 2021 was over €289m.
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.
As requested by the Deputy, the table below outlines the number of applications for mainstream transport in Mayo for school transport each year from 2017/18 to 2021/22 and the number of mainstream school transport places provided each year from 2017/18 to 2021/22.
It is not possible to provide these figures for the 2022/23 school year as the school transport portal is still open and applications are still being received. The data requested prior to the 2017/2018 school year was collated in a different format, it is therefore, not possible to provide this information.
|
School Year |
Number of Mainstream Applications (Including rollover applications) |
Number of Tickets Issued |
|
2017/18 |
5792 |
4796 |
|
2018/19 |
5815 |
4755 |
|
2019/20 |
5758 |
4752 |
|
2020/21 |
5765 |
4276 |
|
2021/22 |
5856 |
4574 |
Please note that the above table includes all applications including where a grant was provided due to no service, where no payment was received and also includes rollover applications from eligible students from previous years.
