Written answers

Thursday, 6 October 2016

Department of Education and Skills

School Transport

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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131. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will devise a new school transport scheme that treats all children equally; if he will put the school bus routes out to tender, either under a national or regional framework; and if he will set up a working group to set out the criteria for such a scheme. [29206/16]

Photo of John HalliganJohn 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.

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. In general, children are eligible for school transport if they meet the distance criterion and are attending their nearest school.

The terms of the Scheme are applied equitably on national basis.

It is a matter for Bus Éireann, which operates the school transport scheme on behalf of my Department, to procure contractors to provide services for school transport purposes.

Bus Éireann is obliged to tender all works, goods and services in line with the European Directives on public procurement, which includes school transport services performed by contractors under the School Transport Scheme.

The Programme for Government commits to review the concessionary charges and rules element of the School Transport Scheme prior to Budget 2017. A cross-party group was established to feed into this review.

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