Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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125. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the total number of late applications received for the school transport scheme in relation to the 2022-2023 academic year; the number from County Monaghan; the number of which have been processed and approved; and the number outstanding. [4692/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 147,900 children, including over 18,000 children with special educational needs, are transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country.

In addition, school transport scheme services are being provided in the current school year for over 3,800 children who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine.

The total cost of the scheme in 2022 was €332.2m.

Children are eligible for transport at primary level where they reside not less than 3.2 kilometres from and are attending their nearest national school, and at post primary level where they reside not less than 4.8 kilometres from and are attending their nearest post primary school/education centre as determined by the department/Bus Éireann, having regard to ethos and language.

Children who are eligible for school transport and who have completed the application process on time have now been accommodated on school transport services where such services are in operation.

Children who are not eligible for school transport, but who completed the application process on time, will be considered for spare seats that may exist after eligible children have been facilitated; such seats are referred to as concessionary seats.

Because of the nature of concessionary transport for non-eligible children and the priority of providing places for eligible children, there may be an excess of demand over supply for concessionary places, in these cases Bus Éireann will allocate tickets for spare seats using an agreed selection process.

Bus Éireann have indicated that while it is not possible to provide the information in the manner requested by the Deputy, they have confirmed that close to 5,000 mainstream eligible and concessionary tickets have issued to families nationwide, who submitted late applications. These pupils have now been facilitated on transport where capacity was available.

There were over 200 late applications received from Co. Monaghan, of those applications, close to 120 mainstream eligible and concessionary tickets issued to late applicants for the 2022/2023 school year. The remaining late applications consist of applications that have since closed, where no service is available and those that did not receive a ticket due to local services being full to capacity.