Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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136. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide an update on a case (details supplied) raised with her Department. [62372/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of my Department. In the last school year over 121,400 children, including over 15,500 children with special educational needs, were transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country at a cost of over €289m 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.

On 18th August 2020 NPHET advised that, for post-primary school students on school transport, social distancing should be ensured in line with that on public transport.

As such, for the 2020/21 school year, based on public health advice the Department provided for School Transport Scheme services to fully operate, but with additional measures such as pre-assigned seating, additional hygiene requirements and the implementation of measures on post-primary services required to provide physical distancing, using 50% of passenger capacity. Primary services operated at 100% capacity but with the additional measures and hygiene requirements in place.

Planning for school transport scheme services for the 2021/22 school year proceeded on the basis that the public health measures in place as schools closed at the end of the last school year would remain as the term began in the new school year. This included the operation of post-primary services at 50% capacity, in addition to hygiene measures and the wearing of masks on-board. The Department kept this position under review as the vaccination programme for children on post-primary services was rolled out and as the lifting of restrictions on public transport services proceeded.

Due to the timing of the 50% capacity guidelines that were issued from NPHET with regard to post primary school transport services, the Department issued communications which was made available at gov.ie and circulated via an email from Bus Éireann to families with existing school transport accounts, advising that it was understood that for some parents and children this latest updated advice may have meant that some parents would not wish for their children to use post-primary school transport and may have wished to bring their own child or children to school for the 2020/2021 school year.

It was requested that if families chose not to use post-primary school transport that they inform the Department by emailing schooltransportrefunds2020@education.gov.ie by Friday 4th September 2020 and on receipt of this email a refund on the cost of the school bus ticket would be arranged. A grant would be provided to support the cost of transport arrangements for those families who were eligible for transport under the terms of the school transport scheme, had applied for school transport by the deadlines and whose parents had decided not to use transport for the 2020/2021 school year and had advised the Department as outlined above.

Bus Éireann have confirmed that the pupil referred to by the Deputy was not attending a post primary school at this time and therefore would not qualify for the grant mentioned above.