Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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379. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will investigate the reason the school bus from Tralee to Castleisland no longer stops at a location (details supplied) where Ukrainian children are housed. [11150/23]

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 €338.9m.

The Department of Education and Bus Éireann have a process to facilitate the provision of School Transport Scheme Services for children arriving to Ireland from Ukraine.

For children residing with a host family or for children of Ukrainian families living in their own private accommodation, an application for school transport can be made via a link to a form on www.gov.ie/ukraine.

Children will be accommodated on existing services where there is capacity. If there is no service or capacity, a grant can be offered to the family as appropriate.

For families and children residing in accommodation centres (or similar), school principals may apply for transport for children attending their school who are residing in such accommodation. School principals should complete the information required on a form which is available on Gov.ie/Ukraine and return it to their local REALT co-ordinator.

Every effort is being made to ensure school transport services are up and running as they are required. However, given the ongoing movement and arrival of families, it may in some cases take some time to arrange services for families.

School Transport Section in my Department have not received any applications from REALT co-ordinators in respect of the accommodation centre referred to by the Deputy. Once applications have been received, they will be processed without delay.