Mr. Richard Dolan:

Quite a number of the operational issues have been dealt with comprehensively. Ms Breda Corr has mentioned some of the training issues. I will give an explanation of some of the policy issues. As has been said before, school transport is a national scheme. It brings 116,000 kids to school and home every day. It is one of the largest transport networks in the country and it costs €182 million each year. I apologise if I miss anything. The current policy was introduced in 2012 and it does not take into account the parish or county boundaries. We recognise it is difficult to have a scheme that fits all specific locations in a national scheme on set criteria and it is challenging to have it fit every local area. The current school transport policy is based on a distance criterion of the closest school; it is 3.2 km at primary and 4.8 km at post-primary. Parents choose whichever school they want for their children but if there is a requirement for school transport there are criteria to be met. These criteria are set down in the schemes.

One of the issues mentioned was the flexibility on the number of ten eligible students. Last summer one of the results of the Oireachtas cross-party group's review of concessionary transport was the Minister of State's announcement of some flexibility on the figure of ten if a school can show it will build back up to it in subsequent years.

The shortest traversable route has been mentioned. It should be noted that under the school transport policy, the shortest traversable route is used to establish eligibility. As Mr. Gerry Gannon and Mr. Ray Hernan have pointed out, it does not necessarily equate to the route the bus will take.

The training issue has been mentioned. I am not sure who mentioned the issue of over-subscribed schools. Currently the section 29 appeal is considered the benchmarking of a full school but there is other information available and we can certainly look at that issue.

Concessionary transport is not guaranteed under current policy from year to year. In recent years there has not been a downsizing of buses which is part of the reason why numbers on concessionary transport have grown. Under current school transport policy, bus size will not be increased to cater for concessionary pupils.

On the ethos issue, there is a slight difference between policy at primary and post-primary. For instance, at primary, we have children bypassing a local Catholic school to go to a multi-denominational school. At post-primary the ethos issue occurs in the context of minority religions. It largely involves eligibility for Church of Ireland schools on the post-primary scheme. The appeals system was mentioned by a number of people. The current appeals system is a process appeal but under the programme for Government there was a commitment to review the appeals system and that review is due to be published shortly.

The communications issue was widely mentioned but it has been dealt with very well by my Bus Éireann colleagues. Unless there are further questions, I think it has been dealt with.

They were the notes I have on the policy issues. I apologise if I have missed anything.