Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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40. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to address concerns that the school transport programme is not being run on an efficient basis, especially with regard to route selection criteria and the criteria for providing a service to students wishing to avail of the programme on a concessionary basis. [18280/16]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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The purpose of my Department's School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school.

School Transport is a very significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of my Department. In the region of 113,000 children, including some 10,000 children with special educational needs, are transported in approximately 4,000 vehicles each school day. The overall costs of the scheme have reduced by some 7% since 2008 as a result of policy changes and other efficiencies. One of the main objectives of the Scheme is to ensure that, as far as possible, eligible children have a reasonable level of service while at the same time, ensuring that school transport vehicles are fully utilised in an efficient and cost effective manner. One of the impacts of the policy changes introduced in recent years is that there has been a reduction in the number of eligible pupils availing of school transport places and a growth in the number of pupils who avail of places on a concessionary basis.

Routes are planned on the basis of the locations of children who are eligible for school transport only.

In general, children are eligible for school transport if they meet the requisite distance criterion and are attending their nearest school having regard to ethos and language.

Children who are not eligible for school transport may avail of school transport on a concessionary basis only; the demand for transport on a concessionary basis is mainly from families whose children who are not attending their nearest school.

Transport on a concessionary basis is subject to a number of terms and conditions including that there are spare seats available on an existing school bus service and on payment of the annual charge.

The Programme for Government commits to review the concessionary charges and rules element of the School Transport Scheme prior to Budget 2017.

This review, which is being commenced, will be aimed at identifying issues in relation to current rules and charges relating to concessionary places under the School Transport Scheme with a view to maximising the effectiveness of available services for children.

The results of the review will be considered in the context of Budget 2017.

Pending this review, there will be no planned programme of downsizing school buses in the coming school year. There will be route changes and variations in line with normal operational decisions that occur from year to year, and any impacts in terms of increases or decreases of available places will be marginal, in line with what occurs every year.