Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 September 2025
416. Deputy Malcolm Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Youth for an update on additional pilot school transport schemes for the 2025/2026 year; if it is envisaged that further services will be provided during this school year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51183/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education and Youth. Already over 178,000 tickets have issued for the 2025/2026 school year, which is over 5,000 additional tickets when compared with the 2024/2025 school year.
As part of the recommendations of Review 2030, a Review of the School Transport Scheme, a number of School Transport pilot programmes began in the 2024/2025 school year. These pilots are continuing for the current school year.
Changes as recommended in the review will take time and careful planning to implement. The recommended action as part of the review is to implement any changes on a phased basis. It was outlined at the time of the publication of the review that, given that the proposed changes to the eligibility criteria are likely to further increase demand for the scheme, it is considered prudent to implement the proposed scheme changes on a phased basis.
For the 2025/2026 school year, In line with the recommendations arising from the review of the school transport scheme, the School Transport Section of the Department engaged with Bus Éireann to assess and identify where more School Transport pilot programmes could be successfully delivered.
A small number of new pilots have been selected, and the Department has provided sanction to Bus Éireann to review where additional capacity may be available for concessionary pupils who paid on time and would become eligible if the revised school transport scheme criteria was rolled out in full.
This is to pilot the revised scheme eligibility criteria in those areas.
Some of these pilots are up and running and the remainder are going through procurement. The sourcing of additional capacity can take time where a procurement process is required, and subsequent vehicle and Driver safety compliance checks need to be completed.
Once a pilot route is established in an area, pupils travelling on this pilot route will still be considered as concessionary under the current terms of the scheme; the revised eligibility criteria is being tested only for the duration of the pilot projects.
As part of these pilot routes, the distance criteria for pupils will be reduced to 2km for both primary and post primary and the requirement for a pupil to be attending their closest school is removed.
These pilots will provide valuable insights on the impact increased demand will have on the scheme, the potential to integrate public transport services with school transport services, and the facilitation of more sustainable modes of transport.
These insights will give an indication of the scale of planning and implementation required for a national roll out of a revised School Transport Scheme, to include the integration of public transport and school transport services.
Priority is given to provide school transport to pupils that are eligible under the current terms of the school transport scheme. Provision of additional services as pilot projects will be subject to the availability of vehicles and drivers in each area. Implementation of the recommendations of the review will continue to be planned subject to resources being available to meet the increased demand.
