Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to be here today, with the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Moynihan, who has responsibility for school transport in the Department, to share an update on school transport. As the House will be aware, the school transport scheme is a hugely significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of my Department.

In the current school year already almost 178,000 children and young people are being transported on a daily basis to schools throughout the country. This figure includes pupils travelling on mainstream services, pupils who have arrived in Ireland from Ukraine, those residing in international protection accommodation services, IPAS, centres and also dedicated services for children with special educational needs. The scheme has expanded significantly over the past six years and we have seen an almost 50% increase in the number of pupils travelling on all services. This growth has been especially marked in the area of special educational needs transport, which now represents almost 60% of the scheme's total costs, while serving around 13% of pupils. This reflects the Department's continued commitment to inclusive access and tailored supports for young people who need them.

Since 2018, investment in the scheme has more than doubled, from €200 million to €512 million in 2024. We have continued to expand the number of students benefiting from the school transport scheme. It is important to stress that point. Every year, the number of young people accessing school transport has increased. However, there are, of course, particular issues in some areas of the country due to the growing populations and growing demand for school transport services in these areas. In my county in particular, and in other commuter areas and larger towns, where we have seen population growth, a young population and a young school-going population, there have been particular challenges. I stress that everything is being done to ensure that all services are in place as soon as possible.

This is a very important issue and is, of course, particularly important for children and young people with special educational needs and their families who require appropriate school transport provision in order to allow their children to attend school. Resolving these difficulties is a priority for me, the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and the team with which we work in my Department, working closely with Bus Éireann. It is important that everybody is focused on ensuring that transport arrangements are put in place as soon as possible. Particular issues have arisen in my county but every day, transport solutions are being found and issues are being resolved for families and, in particular, for children. While the situation is dynamic with solutions being found on a daily basis, those currently without transport represent a very small number of pupils on school transport services nationally. Everything is being done to ensure that those final challenges are overcome.

To outline the magnitude of the scheme, over 149,000 pupils are now travelling on mainstream services, almost 5,500 pupils who arrived in Ireland from Ukraine have been provided with school transport and 23,500 children are travelling on dedicated services for children with special educational needs. Millions of kilometres in school transport routes are provided every day. Every five years, new tendering processes must happen in line with our tender rules.

The school transport 2030 review, published in early 2024, represented the most comprehensive assessment of the scheme since its establishment in 1967. It was informed by extensive consultation with families and students, including those with special educational needs and all other stakeholders. The review outlines a path to expanding access to an additional 100,000 pupils by 2030 while promoting sustainable transport and improving integration with the wider public transport network. That work has already started through pilot programmes. A key outcome is to reduce the number of individual car journeys to school, supporting local communities and our national climate objectives. Achieving the Government's ambition of 260,000 pupils on school transport services would result in significant gain for the environment and a huge societal gain. Importantly, our young people and their families will benefit the most. This is clearly evidenced in the review for the school transport scheme. For households in rural areas or those with limited access to public transport, the scheme plays a critical role in enabling parents to engage in the workforce or pursue training or education. We all know that, for the most part, things have changed for many families. Both parents are working. To be able to get to work and do school dropoffs, perhaps, where there is more than one sibling, to different schools in different directions is complex, stressful and challenging. That is why it is so important. It is why we, as a Government, are absolutely committed to rolling this out to as many students as possible.

The review also demonstrated the impact on pupils who use school transport. They are developing valuable life skills, including independence, time management and confidence in navigating public transport services. Those skills support long-term development and are beneficial in many ways.

The scale of the scheme is significant. We all understand that any changes, particularly of the magnitude we are talking about, need to be planned and implemented well. This is particularly relevant given the issues that have arisen in the current school year with regard to having access to enough drivers and vehicle shortages. Careful consideration must be given to how best to expand the scheme and to cater for that demand. If we were to say that every single child should be able to access school transport tomorrow, it simply would not be possible. We need to ensure it is planned, phased and done in the most appropriate way.

That phased implementation approach was adopted to manage increased demand in a planned and sustainable manner. This commenced with 14 pilot projects in the 2024-2025 school year, developed in partnership with the Department of Transport and Bus Éireann. These pilot projects are continuing for the 2025-2026 school year. They will be monitored during the year and evaluated in full at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. The school transport section of my Department actively engages with Bus Éireann, which is rolling this out, to assess and identify where more school transport pilot programmes can be successfully delivered. The Department has asked Bus Éireann to review where additional capacity can be made available for concessionary pupils who paid on time and would become eligible if the revised school transport scheme criteria was rolled out in full. The nearest school distance and wider criteria are currently still in place. The intention is absolutely to change those but we must do so on a phased basis. That is in order to pilot the revised scheme eligibility criteria in a small number of areas.

Sourcing additional capacity can take time where a procurement process is required and subsequent vehicle and driver safety compliance checks need to be completed. There were many challenges this year. Pupils had been given tickets. They were not concessionary and those pupils had valid tickets, but we could not find someone to apply for the tender and simply could not identify the drivers. We must ensure all of this is worked through. These pilots will provide valuable insights into the impact of increased demand on the scheme and the potential for integrating public transport with school transport services, particularly for older children. I am not saying that we will put younger students on public transport but we will do so for older students, where possible. We will also look for more opportunities to promote more sustainable modes of transport. The findings from these evaluations will guide the planning and implementation needed for a national roll-out of a revised school transport scheme.

The priority is to provide transport to pupils who are eligible under the current terms and to ensure we expand and remove those terms to ensure as many students as possible can access transport as quickly as possible. While some pilot projects are already up and running, we want to work to ensure the availability of vehicles and drivers in the remaining pilot areas and to ensure that additional services can commence as the pilot proceeds. We continue to roll out enhancements to technology and customer service. Improvements have been made to enhance the customer experience, particularly during peak summer months. Bus Éireann has a dedicated call centre, with a call back and webchat facility available to families. The call centre operated with extending opening hours during the summer, when required. A considerable number of people in Bus Éireann and my Department did a huge amount of work over the summer to ensure that as many routes as possible were in place, as many tickets as possible were given out and the many issues were resolved as soon as possible. The biggest challenge and main frustration for parents is the fact that so much of this happens so close to when school is starting. That is the big change we need to make. Work is under way, through the Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, with my support, to make those changes around the timeline. Where children are going to school is a factor. Once parents know where their children are going to school, we want to ensure they can apply for the bus route and pay. We must ensure that Bus Éireann or any private provider can start to map out the routes much earlier. That way, when problems arise, they do not arise the week before the students go back to school. That is the source of much of the frustration. A considerable amount of work is happening in the Department to ensure that can be the case.

Work is also under way in respect of smart ticketing, digital route planning and improvements to the SEN transport application process.

It is also intended to continue to pilot the use of LEAP cards and technology in existing pilot areas and introduce LEAP cards in some of the newer pilot areas for 2025–26. Therefore, a huge amount of work is happening to ensure we have a system that is efficient but that can be rolled out to more students as soon as possible.

With regard to capacity issues, which are the main problem, as with other transport sectors, the school transport scheme continues to experience driver and contractor availability challenges. As part of a national focus on driver requirements, the Department facilitated a working group involving my Department, the Department of Transport, Bus Éireann and Education and Training Boards Ireland to increase the availability of drivers, within the school transport scheme and other public transport areas nationally, through existing and potential training schemes. As a result of the work done by the group, a transport task force has been established. It is chaired by the Department of Transport and its aim is to work collaboratively to identify factors that contribute to recruitment issues and put forward recommendations and measures to create a pipeline of workers to address these issues. Of course, we know some of the challenges and the issues that are being discussed. In addition to considering the possibility for those who are over 70 to perhaps drive for longer, other issues are being considered in that context.

There is no doubt that school transport is such an important service for so many parents. We have just heard from Opposition parties on back-to-school issues and the stress they put on parents. Our objective is to ensure we provide services and transport for young people and do so in a timely manner. Transport-related stress is not the only stress parents face, and that is why the current and previous Governments have made huge strides to try to remove stresses at the time of going back to school. Every single child now gets free books when going to school. Some €200 million in ICT grants is being provided to schools. We have hot school meals for all primary school students. In this regard, the final phase is being rolled out. An increasing number of families are able to access the clothing and footwear allowance, which has been expanded again this year. Therefore, a huge amount of work is being done by the current Government and the previous one to ensure that where we can remove stresses for parents, bearing in mind that we are not going to eliminate every stress, we do so. My colleague and I know that school transport can play a huge role overall in this regard. We are absolutely committed to ensuring we expand the service to as many students as possible.

I stress again that the number of students availing of the service has increased from 120,000 in 2018 to 178,000. This equates to an increase of almost 50%. I hope that shows our commitment very clearly. What we want to do goes even further than that.

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