Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 October 2023
257. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Education to provide an update in respect of school bus transport for a person (details supplied), as a response has not been received from Bus Éireann directly yet. [45203/23]
View answerThe School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the 2022/2023 school year, over 149,000 children, including over 18,000 children with special educational needs, were transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country.
In addition, school transport scheme services were provided for over 5,400 children who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine.
The total cost of the scheme in 2022 was €338.9m.
Already over 133,000 tickets have issued for the 2023/2024 school year which is an increase of 12% when compared with the start of the 2022/2023 school year. The number of tickets issued so far has already exceeded the total number of tickets issued in the 2022/23 school year.
Under the terms of the School Transport Scheme for Children with Special Educational Needs, children are eligible for School Transport if they are attending the nearest recognised: mainstream school, special class, special school or a unit that is or can be resourced, to meet the child's special educational needs under Department of Education and Science criteria.
Bus Éireann is responsible for the planning and timetabling of school transport routes on behalf of my Department. Bus Éireann endeavours, within available resources, to ensure that each eligible child has a reasonable level of school transport service in the context of the Scheme nationally.
Bus Éireann will try to facilitate requests for set down at addresses other than the child’s home address provided the alternate address is on the route of the existing service and the arrangements are the same throughout the school year. However, in general, it is not possible to facilitate atypical school transport arrangements which involve additional mileage, inconvenience to other children on the service, additional cost to the State or where Bus Éireann have concerns regarding a child's safety.
Bus Éireann has advised that the request referred by the Deputy for the pupil referred would have a deviation to the route of an existing service and would incur additional cost to the State and therefore cannot be granted under the terms of the current scheme.
