Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-23
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Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West

I thank Deputy Collins. As he knows, the wider organisation and the operation of it is managed by Bus Éireann and the Department of Education and Youth sets the wider policy and the funding profile. To answer the question, if we stand back and look at the funding of the school transport scheme from 2019 or 2020 to this year, it has expanded significantly. We had 120,000 children using the service in 2019 and this number is now at over 180,000 pupils in 2026. This is a 50% growth in a very short number of years. This speaks to a Government that has prioritised this and is funding it at a greater level. The funding for school transport in 2019 was approximately €219 million and this will rise to more than €600 million this year. This is a scheme that is heavily subsidised, and rightly so, and supports many families throughout the country.
With this level of growth there are certain constraints in areas where the demand has risen. This is managed, as Deputy Collins knows, by Bus Éireann and the current terms of the scheme are continuing to apply for the 2026-2027 school year. This means children are eligible for transport at primary level where they reside not less than 3.2 km from and attend their nearest school and at post-primary level where they reside not less than 4.8 km and attend the nearest school.
As eligible children have to be facilitated in the first instance, the available of concessionary transport varies from year to year and cannot be guaranteed for the duration of the child's time at a particular school. Bus Éireann has always arranged for the service to be full based on the capacity of the vehicle and there can be instances where a given bus may have empty seats. As we know, some people do not always use their ticket for various reasons during a particular year. Bus Éireann can only reallocate tickets that have been handed back by a family.
We have the Estimates process upcoming. What we have had to do over the past 12 months in particular is to manage a level of demand that has increased significantly to absorb it with additional capacity. Every year we have to assess what the projected demand will be in the next school year and what the capacity constraints are in the system to deliver against this. This will be the same for this year. Obviously we want to see more children using school transport. This speaks to the level of funding, which we have increased in the last number of years. Any further changes to be considered as part of the Estimates process will come down to the extent to which the funding support can grow, the demands projected by the Department of education and Bus Éireann's capacity to put it into operation.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-23