Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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895. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to share the details of the school bus routes not operational for the start of the 2025-2026 school year on a county-by-county basis; the number of students impacted by those lacking services; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46066/25]

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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897. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when the bidding for school bus contracts closed for the 2025-2026 school year on a county-by-county basis, if applicable; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46068/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 895 and 897 together.

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

Over 148,000 mainstream tickets have issued for the 2025/26 school year, which is already almost 5% more than the total tickets issued for the full 2024/25 school year.

Unfortunately, difficulties have arisen in a number of locations, specifically in the east of the country, with a small number of contracted services, where it has not yet been possible to provide vehicles / drivers. Less than 0.5% of ticket holders on mainstream services have been affected. This number continues to change as services are put in place.

These difficulties have arisen in some cases due to lack of driver or contractor availability, or where either zero bids were received for a service, despite repeated efforts to procure one. The Bus Éireann School Transport team is working intensively to ensure that transport arrangements are put in place as soon as possible

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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896. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills whether the Department will pay the exceptional no service interim grant up front rather than retrospectively due to the financial impact on parents of the lacking school bus services at the start of this school year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46067/25]

Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, 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 and Youth. In the 2024/25 school year, over 173,000 children were transported daily in approximately 8,200 vehicles across 10,600 routes daily to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. These daily trips cover over 100 million kilometres.

Bus Éireann has advised that in recent weeks they issued tickets for school transport on bus services that had been secured for the 2025/26 school year. Unfortunately, a number of difficulties have arisen in having services in place for the start of the new school year in some localities with a small number of contracted services.

Bus Éireann continues to work intensively to ensure that transport arrangements are put in place as soon as possible, and every effort is being made to ensure transport can be sourced and put in place as soon as possible.

For families who have been issued with a tickets on board one of these services affected, the Department is sanctioning an interim arrangement to assist with the cost of alternative arrangements until your service is in place.

The Exceptional No Service Interim Grant will be made available to families retrospectively. This payment will be paid as an exceptional measure and will be calculated from the date the service was due to commence up to the date that a service in provided for your child(ren). As the payment is based on the number of days a child attends school up until the time a service has commenced, it cannot be paid in advance.

This grant is linked to ticket holders for the number of days that children attended school from 25th August 2025 until a school transport service commences.