Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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130. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding school transport for the 2018-2019 school year in an area (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28140/18]

Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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136. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the position regarding school transport for 2018-2019 in an area (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28172/18]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 130 and 136 together.

School transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department.

Currently over 116,000 children, including almost 12,000 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 at a total cost of almost €190 million in 2017.

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.

Children are generally eligible for school transport if they satisfy the distance criteria and are attending their nearest school.

Seats for concessionary applicants are allocated after all eligible children have been accommodated on school transport services. This exercise normally takes place after the closing date for receipt of payments. Where seats are limited a random selection process is used.

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.

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 year except in line with normal operational decisions within the current scheme.

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