Education Costs
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
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Hildegarde Naughton (FG), Galway West

A recent review of the school transport scheme found that having a fee helps to make better use of resources and prevents seats on school buses from going unused. The fee for a primary school student is 55 cent per week and it is 60 cent for a post-primary school pupil, or €1.32 per week for a family. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and I are also acutely aware of the school transport system and getting better data about usage of school buses across the country. We are working with the Department of Transport and Bus Éireann, which roll this out, to get that data. We absolutely appreciate the importance of school transport, especially around special education children, who get this free of charge. We want to be able to roll that out but we also need to make sure that we are getting good value for money and, where there are vacant seats, that they can be used. For example, there might be students who are taking the bus in the morning and not taking it in the evening, or vice versa , or not taking it on a Tuesday or Wednesday. We need to get that data because we also have calls from TDs here who are saying that their constituents cannot get access to school transport.
That is the work we are doing in the Department to make sure we are getting good value for money for what we are investing.

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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