Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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382. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when a person (details supplied) will receive transport on the school transport scheme. [3292/22]

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 121,400 children, including over 15,500 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 €289 million in 2021.

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 my Department's School Transport Scheme for Children with Special Educational Needs, children are eligible for transport where they are attending the nearest recognised school that is or can be resourced to meet their special educational needs. Eligibility is determined following consultation with the National Council for Special Education through its network of Special Educational Needs Organisers.

I am pleased to advise that the child referred to by the Deputy is eligible for school transport, and Bus Éireann has advised that this child has been offered a seat on a dedicated school transport service to and from his home address to school he is attending both mornings and afternoons. However, family of the child referred to in this case has requested alternative drop-off arrangements for this child in the afternoons.

Bus Éireann endeavours to ensure that a reasonable level of transport service is provided for each eligible child. The safety of pupils travelling on school transport services is of paramount importance to the Department and Bus Éireann. In general, transport for children with special educational needs is provided from home to school and from school to home, the provision to provide school transport to locations other than that is not a feature of the scheme.

The Department considers requests to alternative addresses for eligible children based on a number of conditions; where there is an existing service in place, there is no change to the existing service (time or route), the arrangement is a consistent arrangement (ie the same time and place each day), there is no inconvenience to any other child on the service (time or change of route), there is no health and safety issues and no additional cost to the State.

Bus Éireann has advised that there is no existing service to accommodate this request for alternative drop-off arrangements under terms and conditions outlined above.