Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

292.To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to provide a breakdown of the funds disbursed through the school transport scheme in 2023 for transport of children with special needs, not including children in mainstream education, including the proportion spent on taxi services compared to bus services, in tabular form. [24933/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

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 161,600 children, including over 135,000 pupils travelling on primary and post primary services, 19,800 pupils with special educational needs, and 6,800 pupils who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine are transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country.

The total cost of the scheme in 2023 was €382.02m and the School Transport Scheme for Children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) accounts for over 50% of this total cost on an annual basis.

Bus Éireann operate the scheme on behalf of the Department, of which circa 94% of the total school transport fleet is operated by private contractors under contract to Bus Éireann. Costs attributed to the SEN transport scheme include payments for transport, grants to families to support them with transport arrangements where required, and grants to schools to provide for the cost of the employment of School Bus Escorts.

The total number of vehicles transporting pupils to school on a daily basis is approx. 7,300 and circa 2,300 of these vehicles are taxis. It is important to note that these figures includes pupils on mainstream services, pupils on SEN services and pupils from Ukraine.

It is not possible to provide the information in the manner requested by the Deputy.