John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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76. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the operation of school bus transport with particular regard to children using the system on a concessionary basis will be reviewed; if he will review the operation of the school transport for Celbridge (details supplied); if he will extend the service to facilitate children living in Newcastle village; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52357/17]

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

Currently over 114,000 children, including over 11,000 children with special educational needs, are being transported in over 4,500 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million kilometres annually.

The purpose of the 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 criteria and are attending their nearest school.

The children referred to by the Deputy are not eligible for school transport and may apply for transport on a concessionary basis only which is subject to a number of conditions, including the following:

- Routes will not be extended or altered, additional vehicles will not be introduced, nor will larger vehicles or extra trips using existing vehicles be provided to cater for children travelling on a concessionary basis; no additional State cost will be incurred.

Arising from commitments in the Programme for Government, a review of the Concessionary Charges and Rules element of the School Transport Scheme was undertaken.

The review was published in December 2016 and made recommendations on both the charges and the rules element of concessionary school transport. 

With regard to the charges for concessionary school transport the recommended course of action was to continue with the current position whereby charges remain in place for those in receipt of concessionary places.  I agree with this recommendation on the basis that those applying for concessionary transport are making a conscious decision to do so and understand the implications of this choice at the time of application.

The report also recommended that the number of concessionary places should be reduced in line with the rules introduced in 2012 on a phased basis.  Previous plans to advance this option were put on hold, pending the completion of the review.

However upon consideration of the review and following discussions with the Cross-Party Working Group which I established to feed into the review, I decided that there should be no planned programme of downsizing in the coming years except in line with normal operational decisions within the current scheme.

The terms of the Post-Primary School Transport Scheme are applied equitably on a national basis.