Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, is welcome.

Every autumn, when students are about to back to school, any of us who live in rural areas are inundated with contact from parents distressed over the fact that their child has not got a school bus ticket for the coming school year. They are only notified of this within maybe a week or two of returning to school. It mostly applies to post-primary school but it can apply to primary school as well. It is based on the Department rules which set down that you have to live not less than 3.2 km from your local primary school or 4.8 km from your local secondary school, and be attending your nearest school to be deemed eligible and, therefore, get a school bus ticket.

I know that what are called temporary alleviation measures, which were drafted in 2019, introduced and have been in place since, allow students in second level schools to get a bus ticket to attend their second-nearest school. They do have to pay for it, even if they have a medical card, but at least they can get and are assured of a school bus ticket.It meant that all the other students there were waiting to see if there was space on the bus so that they could get a concessionary school place. This is very stressful for parents. For example, there are four schools in Cavan, two in Granard, one in Oldcastle, and they are all within a similar distance of each other from where I live. If my children were to attend any of those schools, they could be deemed to be the third or fourth nearest school, even though they are all a similar distance away. Last August, 18 students in my area who had bus tickets for a bus going to one of the schools in Cavan were told within two weeks of the beginning of the school year that they had no bus ticket. Some of them had bus tickets for four years and, suddenly, they were left without transport to school. This again was very stressful for parents. This meant that parents who were working and who had younger children that they had to get to crèche or primary school were scrambling for a number of weeks to try to get their children into school. It was resolved after some time but I do not know why it could not be resolved before they were due to go back to school.

In the meantime, a school transport review had been carried out. It was published around February last year. It made a number of recommendations, namely, to reduce the distance for primary school from 3.2 km to 2 km, and then to 1 km, and for post-primary to 2 km from 4.8 km. More importantly, it also recommended the abolition of the nearest school rule. Are those recommendations being actually implemented in the 2025-26 school year? If so, it means that practically all students applying for a school bus ticket will be deemed eligible, which then means we will need much-increased capacity. Has the Department of Education invested in the school fleet within Bus Éireann? It will have to rely on private contractors to provide some of the services, as it does now, but there are not sufficient private contractors to provide a service for the increased capacity if these recommendations are implemented in this school year. There is also a problem getting drivers. Has been that addressed? Acquiring additional buses and the drivers to drive them requires planning. It cannot be done in a matter of a few weeks. The portal is currently open for students to pay for their school bus ticket or to put in their medical card details and therefore, the Department will know fairly soon how many students are applying for bus tickets. The planning needs to have started long before this to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to accommodate all the students who require a bus place.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator for her question on school transport. The School Transport 2030 report, which was published in early 2024, marks the largest review of the school transport system since it was established in the late 1960s. I am committed to working to achieve the report's recommendation of expanding access to the scheme so that an additional 100,000 pupils can be carried by 2030 and to continue to improve the scheme so it provides a valued service to those families who rely on it, while providing value for money for the Exchequer.

The recommended changes to the future operation of the scheme include the expansion of the current eligibility criteria, addressing current operational challenges and moving towards better integration with public transport where possible. A phased implementation of the reviewer's recommendations began at the start of the current school year, 2024-25. As was indicated at the time of the launch of the review, a number of pilots were trialled in the 2024-25 school year, in conjunction with the Department of Transport and Bus Éireann. As was also indicated at the time, it was intended that following closure of the application process for 2024-25 school year, consideration would be given to further potential pilot projects around the country. To that end, I note that the Senator said that the portal is currently open. We are awaiting the figures when that is completed. A total of 14 pilot projects are under way this year. These pilots are currently being evaluated and they will provide a valuable insight into the impact of increased demand on the scheme, the potential for integrating public transport, which is not always possible in rural areas such as the Senator mentioned and, indeed, in the area I come from, and opportunities to promote more sustainable models of transport. The findings from the evaluation will guide the planning and implementation needed for a national roll-out of a revised school transport scheme.Bus Éireann’s family portal is now open to accept new transport applications for the 2025-26 school year, and planning for the 2025-26 school year is well under way between the Department of Education and Bus Éireann.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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It makes sense, where possible, to integrate school bus services with public services. However, as the Minister of State said, that is not always possible. For example, where I live is very rural, as is where he lives. For environmental reasons, it is important to switch as many students as possible from using cars to using buses. It also gets young people into the habit of using bus services, which, we hope, will become a lifelong habit whereby they will continue to use public bus services and train services, etc., where they exist. However, that does not indicate whether increased capacity will be put on school bus services even though, as I said, the integration to the public service is well and good.

We also have a problem with drivers. Bus Éireann has a rule about drivers having to retire at 70. That is not the case if you drive a private bus or a truck, so I do not know why that rule cannot be changed to allow bus drivers to continue to work after the age of 70, if they so choose. I know a number of bus drivers who did not want to retire at 70 and were forced to do so.

I hope that there will be increased capacity in order that all students will be accommodated come September or August when they return to school, and that they will not be left in a situation in which they have been in previous years with no school bus service in the run-up to their return to school.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator for the question. This year, 25 April is the final date by which families can apply on the portal. It is important that date is out there and that families know about it. Indeed, most families availing of it do know about it at this stage. When those figures come to hand, we will review what is necessary. In our experience, from August onwards, families get the routes and so forth, then the challenges come in and it takes some time to work through them. My commitment is that we will work with the review, work with the pilot projects and work very hard to make sure we can accommodate as many students as possible. The flashpoints are at second level but there are also a number of issues in respect of primary schools.

I take the point the Senator made regarding over-70s, which is something we in the Department want to review and clarify. Nevertheless, I remind her we are committed to increasing school transport and implementing the recommendations in the review on expanding access to the scheme, which was published in 2024, as fairly as possible to ensure we can provide transport for students.

Imelda Goldsboro (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. We have five guests visiting us with Deputy Ó Snodaigh. They are very welcome to the Chamber.