Ms Sarah Heneghan:

Ms Flynn might come in on this as well, but late applications for eligible pupils are assessed after all other eligible and concessionary pupils who have paid on time have been facilitated. Bus Éireann is onboarding children who have applied and paid on time. Once this has been done, it will start to look at the late applications from eligible pupils. Those who apply and pay on time should be given precedence. As Mr. Ó Ruairc said, we have a huge communications campaign in the newspapers and on radio and social media. Bus Éireann will e-mail families nine times over the period. It will also send text messages to remind them that they need to pay by the deadline date. They have been given more than enough information and time to pay.

The remote area grant relates to people who are eligible and who apply for transport in circumstances where there is no service in their area. If a person lives in a remote area and it is not possible to put a service on for them, they will be deemed eligible for the grant, which is paid on the basis of on the number of days on which a pupil attends school. At the end of the school year, we send a list of pupils who are eligible for this grant to schools. A school will indicate the number of days on which a child attended and we will pay the family on that basis.