Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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461. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a child (details supplied) will be allocated a space on a school bus. [45122/20]

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 current school year over 113,100 children, including over 14,500 children with special educational needs, are transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country at a cost of over €224.7m in 2020.

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. Under the terms of the Post Primary School Transport Scheme, children are eligible for school transport where they reside not less than 4.8kms from and are attending their nearest Post Primary School/Education Centre as determined by the Department/Bus Éireann, having regard to ethos and language.

All children who are eligible for school transport and who completed the application and payment process on time have been accommodated on school transport services for the 2020/21 school year where such services are in operation. The closing date for payment for the 2020/2021 school year was Tuesday 4th August 2020.

Bus Éireann has confirmed, that the child to whom the Deputy refers is eligible for School Transport. The family first applied for School Transport on 22nd April 2018 for the 2018/19 school year. The pupil's application was rolled over by Bus Éireann for the following years. However no payment was received from the family for the 2020/21 school year. For this reason the pupil was not issued with a ticket for the 2020/21 school year.  

Bus Éireann has also confirmed that 50% social distancing has been implemented on the service in question and that the service is currently operating at capacity.