Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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351. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the current cost of the free travel scheme and the number of participants; the projected cost of introducing free travel to students, namely, those aged 18 to 24 years who hold a public service card; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38384/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Free Travel scheme provides free travel on the main public and private transport services for those eligible under the scheme. These include road, rail and ferry services provided by companies such as Bus Átha Cliath, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann, as well as Luas and services provided by over 80 private transport operators. There are approximately 1,034,000 customers with direct eligibility. The estimated expenditure on free travel in 2022 is €95 million.

Estimating the cost of extending the free travel scheme to students aged 18 to 24 who hold a Public Services Card is very difficult, as the cost is determined by the usage of the extra passes provided and not by the increased number. The fact that many operators have reduced fares for students would also have to be considered.

The objective of the Free Travel scheme is to ensure that older people and people with disabilities remain active within their community and, while consideration is always given to any requests to improve or extend eligibility to the Free Travel scheme, uncoupling the link between receipt of particular social welfare payments and eligibility for the Free Travel scheme would so fundamentally alter the scheme that it would move it away from being a social welfare measure to being a general transport initiative.

Any such scheme would also require a fundamental expansion to the administrative set up and operation of the Free Travel scheme, as it would have to grant and withdraw potentially hundreds of thousands of passes each year, using information which would have to be provided by all the colleges in the State in the case of higher education students. Any proposals in this regard would have to be considered in the context of priorities for the Free Travel scheme and the budgetary implications of same.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.