Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am replying to this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State with responsibility for lifelong learning, Deputy Seán Haughey. I thank Deputy Bannon for raising this matter.

Before I address the issue of the transport for this particular child, I will give Members an outline of the extent of the school transport service. School transport is a very significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on the Department's behalf and covering over 82 million kilometres annually. In the region of 125,000 children, including more than 8,000 children with special needs, are transported in over 3,800 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. This includes over 9,000 schoolchildren who travel on scheduled bus and rail services, including those of licensed private operators.

Under the terms of the primary school transport scheme pupils are eligible for free transport if they reside 3.2 km or more from, and are attending, their nearest national school as determined by the Department. Where a school is closed and amalgamated with another, children for whom the closed school would have been their nearest had it remained open, are eligible for free transport to the school of amalgamation. Pupils may avail of transport to a school other than the amalgamated school on a concessionary basis. Such an arrangement would be subject to a number of conditions as follows: the payment of an annual charge which is currently €200; spare seats being available on the service; the agreement of the school of amalgamation being obtained; and no additional State costs being incurred by way of re-routing the service.

In regard to the case outlined by the Deputy, Bus Éireann has been requested to submit a report on the matter. On receipt of this report the Department will be in a position to investigate the matter more fully and issue a reply directly to the Deputy. I again thank the Deputy for raising this matter.

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