Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I take it the Deputy is referring to the changes in the primary school transport scheme announced in budget 2011 by the previous Fianna Fáil-Green Party Government. These changes, which may have an impact on the school transport service for St. Columba's national school, derive from recommendations in the value for money review of the school transport scheme and include changes to the closed school rule, CSR, and to the minimum numbers required to establish or maintain a service.

Regarding the CSR, there is a number of dimensions to the cessation of this rule. The first, which will be implemented from September 2011, involves the uniform application of the distance criterion to all pupils travelling under the primary transport scheme, including those travelling under the CSR. This means that children residing less than 3.2 km from their school of amalgamation will be deemed ineligible for school transport. Families affected will be notified by Bus Éireann of changes to their transport eligibility with effect from the 2011-2012 school year. These families may apply for concessionary transport on payment of a charge of €200 in circumstances where there are spare seats available.

The second element of the change is scheduled to take effect in September 2012 and will apply only in the case of pupils commencing their primary education from that date. This change will restrict school transport eligibility for new pupils to those who meet the distance eligibility criterion and are travelling to their nearest school.

Available statistics, based on sampling undertaken as part of the value for money review, indicate that the impact of this element of the change will be limited, as the majority of pupils categorised under the closed school rule are in fact attending their nearest school. Therefore, the majority of families will not be affected by the change. That said, I have requested Bus Éireann to conduct a detailed analysis of the impact for individual schools and the rural communities they serve. Like the Deputy, I attended a small rural school and am very much aware of the requirements of these schools and the challenge they face to survive.

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