Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Bus Éireann put out the bus transport system to tender.

It is usually private bus owners who run the scheme. In the rural setting in which I live, the same bus carries both primary school kids and secondary school kids. It is a double run. The buses are at capacity. If social distancing is to be implemented, and if primary schoolchildren must be separated from secondary schoolchildren because of the risk of contamination, to be reasonable, the bus runs for primary school will have to be doubled and a second, different bus will have to run for secondary schools. Are bus firms in the country able to sustain this? How will this be managed if they are not?