Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 October 2022
192. Deputy Patrick O'Donovan asked the Minister for Education the number of additional seats on school buses that have been allocated in County Limerick from the last academic school year, 2021/2022 and this school year, 2022/2023 since the announcement that students availing of the school bus transport scheme would not be charged fees; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [48875/22]
View answerThe School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department. In the last school year over 121,400 children, including over 15,500 children with special educational needs, were transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country at a cost of over €289m in 2021.
In July 2022, Government announced funding for the waiving of school transport scheme fees for the coming school year as part of a wider package of cost of living measures.
Ticket registration for the 2022/23 school year closed on 29 July by which time almost 130,000 applications/registrations were received for mainstream school transport. This figure includes 44,299 new applications as well as roll-overs from the previous school year.
Nationwide, in the region of 20,400 additional places have been created, which is a a 20% overall increase. There has been an increase of 18% to date in the number of tickets issued to eligible pupils and an increase of 27% to date on the number of tickets issued to concessionary pupils, compared to the start of the 2021/2022 school year.
Bus Éireann are continuing to process applications and to issue tickets as soon as extra buses and drivers are sourced and become available to provide transport for the higher numbers qualifying for the service. Therefore, final figures for the 2022/2023 school year are not available at present.
However, Bus Éireann have advised that so far, in the current school year an additional 852 tickets have been issued to families for transport on school buses in County Limerick compared to the last academic school year (2021/2022). A tabular statement is provided below:
|
No. of Mainstream tickets issued for schools located in Limerick |
Number of tickets issued |
|
No. of tickets issued in September 2021 for 2021/2022 school year |
4420 |
|
No. of tickets issued as of 26th September 2022 for 2022/2023 school year |
5272 |
