Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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370. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will address a matter concerning granting a July travel provision to a person (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44186/20]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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School Transport is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. 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 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.

With regard to transport arrangements for the Summer Programme, my Department committed to providing grant funding to support families with the cost of transport arrangements for those children who were eligible for school transport and who were approved to participate in the school based Summer Programme.

School Transport Section has commenced processing payment of these grants to families who are eligible and payments will continue to be processed in the coming weeks. Payment to the family referred to by the Deputy will be made in the coming weeks.