Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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75. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if consideration would be given to extending a bus route to allow for a child (details supplied) to be picked up outside their home, as had been the case some years back; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41697/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The 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 132,000 tickets have issued for the 2023/2024 school year which is an increase of 12% when compared with the same time last year. This number of tickets has already exceeded the total number of tickets issued in the 2022/23 school year.

The purpose of the 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.

Under the terms of the Primary School Transport Scheme, children are eligible for transport where they reside not less than 3.2 kms from and are attending their nearest national school as determined by the Department/Bus Éireann, having regard to ethos and language.

Bus Éireann is responsible for the planning and timetabling of school transport routes. 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.

Routes are planned so that, as far as possible, no eligible child will have more than 2.4 kilometres to travel to a pick-up point. Children living off the main route of a service are generally expected to make their own way, or to be brought to convenient pick-up points along the main route.

Bus Éireann has advised that this family referred to by the Deputy are eligible for school transport and reside 4.5kms from home to the pick up point to their school of attendance. Bus Éireann also advise an Inspector from their Local Office is currently reviewing if the service can be brought closer and will liaise directly with family in this regard.

A remote area grant is sanctioned by the Department where a family resides 3.2kms or over from a pick up point. Following investigation, if Bus Éireann cannot move the route closer to home, School Transport Section of my Department will liaise with the family referred in this regard.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The 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 which includes 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.

There has been an overall increase in both applications and tickets issued for the 2023/2024 school year in comparison to the 2022/2023 school year.

To date Bus Éireann has issued over 133,000 tickets for mainstream school transport services, which exceeds the total number of mainstream tickets issued by the end of the last school year. Already there are more children travelling on mainstream services than in the 2022/2023 school year.

Tickets issued so far represent an increase of 7% in mainstream tickets issued compared to the same week in 2022.

With regard to pupils availing of the school transport scheme for children with special educational needs, to date, close to 5,000 new applications have been received for transport for the 2023/2024 school year, with over 1,400 of these having been received since July alone. This compares to some 3,670 new applications received at this time last year. To date transport has been provided for over 3,000 new applicants travelling on the above scheme for the 23/24 school year, with transport being provided for over 19,000 pupils in the current school year. As there is no defined closing date for applications under the school transport scheme for children with special educational needs, my Department continues to receive applications all year round.