Ms Sarah Heneghan:

Under the rules of the scheme, children are eligible for transport to their closest school. If it is full or they have not been able to get into it, there is an avenue. As I said previously, this is on our website. They can make contact with the Department to say their closest school is full. If they can prove they enrolled on time and were not accepted, they will be deemed eligible for transport to the second closest school. We can definitely follow up on that. I agree about the schools moving. We are seeing that in different areas, where schools move into a temporary location and then move back to a permanent location. If, however, children are deemed eligible for transport to a school and the school moves, they will retain that eligibility for the rest of their years in the school.

A 5% administration fee is paid to the schools for the number of bus escorts they get.

We understand it is a huge administrative burden for them. However, that administration cost for school bus escorts is paid to them when the remittance is made.