School Transport
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
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Michael Moynihan (FF), Cork North-West

I thank the Deputy for the question. The school transport system is operated on behalf of the Department by Bus Éireann and it has expanded significantly over the past six years. In response to previous questions, I said the number of pupils using the service had increased from 120,000 years ago to 181,000 now. That is more than a 50% increase in a short time. The investment by the State has increased from €200 million to €537 million in 2025. There has been a huge increase in the special education requirement aspect of it as well, which now accounts for almost 60% of funding in the scheme.
The Deputy mentioned the feeder schools. At various points, we can see that the school transport system is encountering challenges across the country. There are challenges in relation to areas of the country where the feeder schools are going to one particular school and the nearest school is going to other schools. Those have been recurring for some time. In fact, going back a number of years ago, it was changed from the catchment area to the nearest school to try to alleviate the pressures in the school transport system and to modernise it. A number of pilot projects have taken place. There were 14 in the previous school year and 11 in the current school year. This data is being collected right to the end of this school year to ensure we have a proper glance at where the challenges are. In the programme for Government, we are committed to further expanding the scheme. Indeed, the 2030 report also talks about it.
A lot of the questions that have come from the Deputy, and from other Deputies, concerned feeder schools, the criteria involved in this context and how that marries into how we operate the school transport system in future. County Mayo has been mentioned a few times, and we will certainly review the situation, but it will be based on the data we have from the pilot schemes.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23