Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education and Youth.

The retirement age for school bus drivers has been set by Bus Éireann at 70 years of age, which also applies to all Bus Éireann road passenger services.

The policy and criteria also apply to drivers nominated by private operators who operate services as part of the School Transport Scheme, provided they hold the requisite license and satisfy an annual medical examination until they retire at age 70.

The Road Safety Authority, under the remit of the Department of Transport, committed to reviewing the upper age limit of drivers as it relates to larger vehicles/school buses. This review is now complete.

Under the new Programme for Government (PFG), Government has committed to "Carry out an independent assessment on the feasibility of removing the exclusion of drivers aged over 70 from the School Transport Scheme".

The Department is engaging with the Department of Transport and with Bus Éireann on this matter.

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The school transport scheme is a demand led scheme based on the number of children who apply. The scheme is operated using a mix of Bus Éireann owned vehicles and directly recruited drivers, and private contractors who recruit their own drivers to operate on the scheme.

The Current eligibility criteria is as follows:

• Primary school: Children are eligible if they live 3.2 km or more from their nearest national school.
• Post-primary school: Children are eligible if they live 4.8 km or more from their nearest post-primary school or education centre.
• Distance is measured by Bus Éireann. The rules also take into account the language and ethos of the school.

If a child is eligible and the family applies and pays on time, they will be given a place on the school bus if:

• A service is running in their area
• There is space available

If a child is not eligible, but the family still applies and pays on time, they may be offered a spare seat if there is one. These are called concessionary seats.

However, because eligible children are given priority, there may not be enough spare seats for everyone who applies. In these cases, Bus Éireann will allocate tickets for spare seats using an agreed selection process

Temporary Alleviation measures will continue for the upcoming school year. If a child is eligible for transport to their nearest school, but is going to their second nearest school, they may still get transport as long as a service is running and there is space, and they apply and pay on time.

As part of the operation of the scheme, Bus Éireann manages the procurement tender process and contract management arrangements to include services provided by contractors under the School Transport Scheme. There are currently in the region of 8,000 vehicles operating on the scheme.

The competitive procurement process is conducted in accordance with the negotiated procedure under national and EU procurement legislation.

At the beginning of the current school year, Bus Éireann reported particular issues with availability of drivers and contractors. This included a number of contractors handing back contracts unexpectedly, and the receipt of zero bids for contracts tendered out in certain areas. This is against a backdrop of significant shortages of drivers in the labour market overall and competing demands for drivers to deliver additional public transport initiative.

Bus Éireann has frequent engagement with existing contractors. A national and local media advertising campaign seeking additional contractor operators for the Scheme is currently in place supported by additional targeted social media campaigns.

As part of a national focus on driver requirements, the Department has facilitated a working group between the Department of Education, Department of Transport, Bus Éireann and Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI) to increase the availability of drivers within both the school transport scheme and other public transport areas nationally, through existing and potential training schemes.

As a result of work undertaken by the working group, a transport taskforce has now been established which is chaired by the Department of Transport. The aim of the taskforce is to work collaboratively to identify contributing factors to the recruitment issues and put forward recommendations and measures to address these issues.