Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The changes to school transport were announced in the 2011 Budget by the previous Fianna Fáil – Green Party Government and derive from a recommendation in the published Value for Money Review of the scheme.

From the beginning of the 2011/12 school year a €50 charge, which applies to all eligible primary pupils, is being introduced to ensure that school transport provided for these pupils is fully utilised in a cost efficient manner. Eligible pupils holding medical cards and pupils with special educational needs will be exempt from paying the charge. In addition, the maximum family charge at primary level for eligible pupils will be €110 while the overall combined maximum charge per family is not being increased from the current rate of €650 per annum. Parents will continue to be given the option of spreading the annual payments over two instalments in July and December.

It is important to stress that there are a number of dimensions to the cessation of the Closed School Rule (CSR). The first of these, which will be implemented from September 2011, involves the uniform application of the distance criterion to all pupils travelling under the primary transport scheme, including those travelling under the CSR. This means that children residing less than 3.2 kilometres from their school of amalgamation will be deemed ineligible for school transport. In such cases, these children may apply for concessionary transport.

The second element of the change is scheduled to take effect in September 2012 and will apply only in the case of pupils commencing their primary education from that date. This second element will restrict school transport eligibility for those pupils entering in September 2012, to pupils who meet the distance eligibility criterion and are travelling to their nearest school.

Available statistics, based on sampling undertaken as part of the Value for Money Review, indicate that the impact of this change will be limited as the majority of pupils categorised under the CSR are in fact attending their nearest school and will not be affected by this change.

Before implementing this second main change which is proposed for 2012, my Department has requested Bus Éireann to conduct a detailed analysis of the "on the ground" impact for individual schools and the rural communities they serve. This analysis will be based on the most up to date information available on current school transport usage patterns and I expect to have this information available to me this summer. I will then have an opportunity to carefully examine the likely affects of this change well in advance of the 2012 implementation date.

Given the major financial constraints facing the country, I regret that I cannot reverse the changes to school transport as announced by the previous Government. We all have to understand the legacy of economic mismanagement which the last Government gave to the country.