Mr. Richard Dolan:

I thank the Chair. Members posed a number of questions and I will do my best to cover them all. If I miss some, I ask the Chairman to remind me. Deputy Byrne asked a few specific questions related to minimum numbers. We do not establish a new service for ten or fewer users but because of ministerial decisions not to reduce the size of the fleet in recent years, there are some services around the country with fewer than ten children using them. I am sure committee members are aware of the overall Special Educational Needs, SEN, process but I will summarise it now. Applications come to the Department through the Special Education Needs Officer, SENO, and the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. We have a role in approving or refusing the application. Once approved, we pass the application through to Bus Éireann which looks at current transport services in operation and determines the most effective method of transporting the child. That can be done in a number of ways. If there is an existing service with spare capacity that is suitable for the child, it will be used. In some cases, however, Bus Éireann will come back to us for approval to establish a new service at X cost. At that point, Bus Éireann must go through all of the regular procurement processes. The SEN service is very much based around the child who is applying and the service may be individualised so the process can be different in some cases. In response to the Deputy's other direct question, the number of staff within the Department working on school transport is ten.

Deputy Funchion asked about the supports available to a child within a school. To be honest, I am not aware of the individual circumstances. The Department has a range of supports available to children within schools but I would not know about the specific supports available to any individual child within the system. I am sure that supports within the school will be made available to the child.

The number of children who are still not on transport services relates to the concessionary issue. All children who are eligible for school transport are either on services or are in receipt of the remote area grant. The children who are not on services are concessionary passengers. They are ineligible-----