Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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973. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if school bus routes in Kildare (details supplied) will be going ahead this school term; and if so, the timeline for when these routes will be operational. [46591/25]

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 6 of the routes referred to by the Deputy are operating for the 2025/26 school year, 2 more routes referred are due to commence in the coming days, and there are 2 additional routes where Bus Éireann are currently prioritising sourcing a transport solution. School Transport Section of my Department will contact the Deputy directly to provide a breakdown of each route.

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 the child attended school from 25th August 2025 until a school transport service commences.