Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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170. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if figures are available for repeated or semi-permanent non-use of school transport tickets; and his views on whether this is an issue which needs to be addressed. [28212/16]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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School transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department.

During the 2015/16 school year in the region of 114,000 children, including some 10,000 children with special educational needs, were transported in approximately 4,000 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million kilometres annually.

Bus Éireann operates the School Transport Scheme on behalf of my Department and are responsible for the timetabling and routing of services. Seats are allocated and tickets issued up to the maximum seating capacity of a school bus and once the seating capacity is reached, no further tickets can be issued.

On any given school day it is impossible to anticipate the exact number of ticket holders who will travel and absenteeism will sometimes result in a small amount of seats being available on a particular day.

Bus Éireann can monitor services where it appears that seats are not being utilised with a view to confirming the need for these seats. In this regard, if the Deputy wishes to provide details of a particular service, I can request Bus Éireann to review the service usage.