Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The scale of the ambition is not nearly where it needs to be. In the last 20 years, we have seen a 6% decrease in the number of people who avail of school bus transport, and a 31% increase in the number of children travelling to school by car. That is inconsistent with where we need to be going in terms of our modal shift. There are many compelling reasons to move people from the private car to the school bus. If this is the first year in a ten-year programme, it is not anywhere near where it needs to be.

I ask the Minister about an area that is almost neglected in terms of school bus transport, namely, the private operators who operate outside the school bus transport system in many towns and villages around this country. How many people do they carry? Is there any assessment from the Minister’s Department in terms of the private sector and how many children it carries to school on a daily basis?

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