Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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250. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if Bus Éireann make a profit from school transport in view of the existence of minutes of a meeting on 29 June 2011, which he attended, with Bus Eireann and his Department, where Bus Eireann Chief Executive and its Company Accountant explained that there was a fund containing a surplus of €2-3million from the payments received by Bus Eireann from his Department for delivery of the School Transport Scheme services. [38675/13]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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251. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the last year in which Bus Éireann made a profit from school transport. [38677/13]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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253. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on whether the arrangement between Bus Éireann and his Department for the provision of school transport services is of a commercial nature. [38679/13]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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254. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if any profit is made by Bus Eireann from his Department for the provision of school transport services; the amount of profit that has been made each year since 2004 in compliance with the EU Commission Directives on Transparency. [38680/13]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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255. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he personally ever met anybody who expressed an interest in tendering for the school transport services that Bus Éireann currently receives payment for from his Department. [38681/13]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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256. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reasons his Department gave to the EU Commission on Competition for not putting the school transport scheme out to public tender; if these reasons are the same reasons that were given to the Public Accounts Committee by the Secretary General in February 2013 and in the Commercial High Court in the case taken by Student Transport Scheme Limited against his Department in 2012 in relation to the scheme. [38684/13]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 250, 251 and 253 to 256, inclusive, together.

Bus Éireann, which operates school transport services on behalf of my Department, maintains a separate account for the School Transport Scheme. This account is audited each year by independent auditors and accounts in respect of the last number of years are available on my Department's website.

The Department reimburses Bus Éireann for a range of costs identified as being directly incurred in the operation and administration of the scheme, together with an agreed 13% charge to cover all other direct costs and indirect costs attributable to the work carried out for the Department. In recent years an element of the 13% charge has been rebated to the Department by mutual consent. The breakdown of the 2010 and 2011 figures (€18.2m and €16.7m) are available on the Committee of Public Accounts website.

While the scheme has evolved since 1975 it continues to be operated under the original arrangement and there is no obligation upon the Department under the EU Directive to terminate this arrangement.

Issues relating to the present arrangements for the school transport scheme have been raised with me and with my officials by various representative groups

As the Deputy points out, a Commercial High Court case was taken by Student Transport Scheme Ltd against the Minister for Education and Skills. The judgement, delivered on 23 October 2012, concludes that the operation of the Scheme does not establish the existence of a contract and that the evidence establishes that the arrangements between the Department and Bus Éireann do not contain terms that might normally be associated with a commercial contract. The detailed judgement is available on the Courts Service website. This is currently the subject of a potential appeal by Student Transport Scheme Ltd to the Supreme Court.

I am sure that the Deputy will accept that matters that may be raised in the context of such an appeal should properly be addressed in that forum.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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252. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will publish the FGS report commissioned in 2008-2009 that investigated direct and indirect charges for school transport. [38678/13]

Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The Farrell Grants Sparks (FGS) report entitled "Review of the overhead costs and indirect costs for the administration of the school transport scheme" was completed in October 2009.

In completing its work on this report, FGS entered into a signed confidentiality agreement with Bus Éireann having regard to the fact that certain of the information made available to FGS by Bus Éireann was deemed to be commercially sensitive.

This issue is at present encompassed by an appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner.