Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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296. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of increasing capacity on the school transport scheme by 10%, 25%, 30% and 50%, in tabular form. [26202/23]

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 149,000 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. The total cost of the scheme in 2022 was €338.9m.

There has been an increase of 21% tickets issued to eligible students and 38% tickets issued on a concessionary basis in the current 2022/23 school year compared to the 2021/22 school year. In addition, school transport scheme services are being provided in the current school year for over 5,200 children who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine.

The Department reimburses Bus Éireann on a cost recovery basis for a range of costs involved in operating the scheme, including administration costs, the cost of Bus Éireann’s directly provided routes and the cost of private contractors who provide school transport services under contract to Bus Éireann. The cost to increase the scheme under the various percentages is not possible to accurately estimate as various factors would influence the cost of increasing capacity, such as the daily rate charged by private contractors for additional services, the use of spare capacity already in the system particularly at primary level which could be availed of at no extra cost, the parental contribution that would be offset which would depend on the number of children who apply/hold medical cards, etc., and the increased cost to administer the scheme arising from additional services.