Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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456. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if there are provisions being considered to supplement public transport with additional school transport particularly under level 5 restrictions which reduced capacity on public transport to the point to which it is inaccessible to many students. [34945/20]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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School Transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education.

In the 2019/20 school year over 120,000 children, including over 14,200 children with special educational needs, were transported in over 5,000 vehicles on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country covering over 100 million kilometres at a cost of over €219m in 2019.

School Transport services for the 2020/2021 school year commenced on the 26th August 2020. All children who are eligible for school transport and who applied and paid by the deadline have been accommodated on school transport services where such services are in operation.

Based on the public health advice published in early July, and the updated advice received from the HPSC on 7 August and from NPHET on 18 August, the Department has been planning for School Transport Scheme services for the 2020/2021 school year to fully operate, but with additional measures and hygiene requirements in place and with the rolling implementation of measures on post-primary services as required to provide physical distancing, using 50 per cent of passenger capacity. The implementation of 50% capacity has been put in place where possible over the last number of weeks and over the coming weeks, Bus Éireann will be implementing 50% capacity on a rolling basis as soon as it is possible to do so on all remaining routes. Government has agreed to provide the necessary funding to ensure that full implementation of the public health recommendation of running buses for post-primary children is achieved as quickly as possible on the post-primary scheme and on the special educational needs scheme for post-primary children. As the additional capacity is rolled out, where spare capacity is created, further tickets will be allocated to those children eligible for the scheme who have paid late and for other applicants seeking concessionary tickets.