Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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683. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 769 of 13 January 2016 and the changes to the primary school transport scheme for a school (details supplied) in County Cork, the number of children carried; the amount her Department paid to Bus Éireann; the average cost per child carried; the percentage increase or decrease per child carried, on a year by year basis; the applicable number of children, seven or ten, in the minimum number of eligible children required to establish or to retain a service; the relevant charges for eligible children; the number of current services for the year; the number of terminated services from the previous year; and the number of new services introduced, in each case for the entire school transport schemes, with columns for children carried, for each of the financial years 2010 to 2015, in tabular form. [6521/16]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is outlined below.

1. The total number of children carried from 2010 to 2015 was as follows:

2. The amount paid by the Department on the annual Statement of Account from 2010 to 2014 was as follows:

3. The Statement of Account for 2015 will be available shortly. The average cost per Child Week from 2010 to 2014, from which the percentage increase may be calculated, was as follows:

4. The Minimum Number of Eligible Children required for service retention or establishment was seven eligible children until the introduction of the revised schemes in 2011/12 when the threshold was increased to ten eligible children.

The number of services withdrawn under the Minimum Number rule from 2010 to 2015 was as follows:

5. The relevant charges for eligible children are as follows:

6. The current total for the number of services at the end of 2015 was 6,786 services. The number of new services introduced between 2010 and 2015 was as follows:

Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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684. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a value-for-money review on school transport found that Bus Éireann's costs are 21% higher than the equivalent costs of the private school bus contractors, per mile on large buses for school routes, when the inspection costs are excluded, and approximately 19% higher when the inspection costs are included; and the total miles travelled by Bus Éireann's large buses and by equivalent private bus operators' buses of the same size, in each of the years 2008 to 2015, in tabular form. [6522/16]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The specific figures referred to by the Deputy are contained in the Report of the Value for Money Review of the School Transport Scheme. The full report is available on my Department's website at www.education.ie

Bus Éireann has advised that the approximate mileage for the large bus cohort only, rounded to the nearest half million kilometres, is as follows: