Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter today.

Before I address the specific issue raised, I would like to provide the House an outline of the extent of the school transport service.

School transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann, as the Deputy has noted, on behalf of the Department. In the 2019-20 school year over 120,000 children, including over 14,200 children with special educational needs, were transported in over 5,000 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million km at a cost of over €219 million in 2019.

The purpose of the Department's school transport scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school. Under the terms of the scheme, children are eligible for school transport if they satisfy the distance criteria, which are 3.2 km at primary level and 4.8 km at post-primary level, and are attending their nearest school as determined by my Department-Bus Éireann, having regard to ethos and language. All children who are eligible for school transport and who completed the application and payment process on time for the 2020-21 school year have been accommodated on school transport services where such services are in operation.

Children who are not eligible for school transport, but who completed the application process on time, are considered for spare seats that may exist after eligible children have been facilitated. Such seats are referred to, as the Deputy has previously stated, as concessionary seats. The provision of a seat on a concessionary basis in a given year does not confer any continuing entitlement for that user in following years as concessionary places are entirely contingent on there being spare seats once eligible users are provided for.

To date for the 2020-21 school year, Bus Éireann has issued or allocated tickets to over 97,000 children on the primary and post-primary school transport schemes, including tickets for over 26,200 concessionary applicants. The closing date for payment for the 2020-21 school year was Tuesday, 4 August 2020. The school transport scheme family portal was temporarily closed for applications and payments on 20 August 2020. This temporary closure was necessary to complete the work required to issue tickets to families who at that time remained due to be allocated a ticket for school transport services for the 2020-21 school year. The school transport scheme family portal has now re-opened. However, parents or guardians making an application or payment at this time for the 2020-21 year are reminded that while it is possible to submit a payment, payments made at this time are now considered late. Late applicants or families who pay late or both, both eligible and concessionary, are not guaranteed a seat and will only be allocated a seat if capacity is available once seats are allocated to those families who applied and paid on time for transport services for the 2020-21 school year.

In addition, applications and payments for post-primary seats completed or made after 4 August 2020 will be only considered when the 50% capacity required by new Covid-19 public health guidelines is achieved on each route. The timeframe for this will vary from route to route and may take a number of weeks to complete.

In the event of not securing a ticket where no capacity exists, or on cancellation, a full refund will be issued.

With regard to the review of the school transport scheme, as announced by my predecessor in October 2019, given the current evolving situation with Covid-19, the proposed review has been delayed.

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However, I propose to convene the steering group in the short term and to agree and supplement revised terms of reference to reflect the programme for Government, including an examination of issues such as the nearest or next nearest school.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and for affording me the opportunity to provide an outline of the extent of the school transport scheme and to respond.

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