Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 203: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if it is her Department's policy to refund money paid for school transport where they have been told they are outside the catchment area, when in fact they are within it; and the number of such cases. [32744/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Bus Éireann administers the school transport services on behalf of my Department. School bus routes are organised on a local basis by 11 regional Bus Éireann offices. Payments for school transport tickets are processed by each regional office.

If issues arise regarding refunds of payments made, these should be brought to the attention of Bus Éireann, in the first instance, for further investigation.

At the end of September, Bus Éireann informed my Department that 151 post-primary and 234 primary school applicants, who applied for transport on a concessionary basis, were refunded moneys because no transport was available on the routes concerned for concessionary applicants.