Thousands of children are still waiting to hear if they will have a seat on a bus for the upcoming school term as there has been “unprecedented numbers” of new applicants for the upcoming school year.
Many other pupils have had their request for a place on school transport rejected after a surge in demand since the Government announced it was waiving fees for one year under measures to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis.
The Department of Education claims the “unprecedented numbers of new applicants for the upcoming school year” has seen a delay in issuing of tickets. It confirmed almost 130,000 applications were received — and that over 115,000 tickets for school buses have now been sent to families in advance of the reopening of schools.
“Ticket registration for the 2022/2023 school year closed on 29 July by which time almost 130,000 applicants/registrations were received for mainstream school transport,” the Department of Education said in a statement. “This figure includes 44,299 new applicants as well as rollovers from the previous school year. Already over 115,000 tickets for the 2022/2023 school year have been issued for applicants for the new school year.”
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Bus Éireann, which operates the school transport scheme for the Government, said it is committed to continuing to process applications “as soon as extra drivers and buses become available” and that delays were due to unprecedented numbers of new applicants for the upcoming year.
“However, regrettably the unprecedented numbers of new applications for the upcoming school year, has led to some delays in issuing tickets. Bus Éireann is continuing to work through remaining applications and families will be contacted as further information is available,” it said.
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Students are eligible for transport at primary level where their home is 3.2km or more from their nearest national school they are attending — and not less than 4.8km for secondary school. Concessionary tickets were traditionally given to pupils who did not necessarily meet the criteria for the scheme — for example, those not attending the nearest school — where there was capacity on a bus route.
Families that normally would pay an annual ticket charge will not be charged a fee for their school bus ticket for the 2022/2023 school year.
A spokesman for Minister for Education Norma Foley said she has held a meeting with Bus Éireann chief executive tephen Kent.
“During the meeting he assured the Minister that they are making every effort to ensure that all eligible children who completed the application and ticket registration process on time will be accommodated on school transport services,” he said. “The Department of Education has provided and will continue to provide all the necessary resources to support this endeavour including the hiring of extra buses and drivers and the facilitation of additional staff in the customer care centre.”
Seán Canney, a former junior minister and Independent TD for Galway, said hundreds of families have been contacting him in recent days about the “fiasco” created by the temporary abolition of schoolbus fees.
“I have never seen such a mess,” he said. “On a daily basis over the last two weeks I am getting texts, emails, messages from concerned parents who can’t get an answer from Bus Éireann about whether their children have a place on the bus.
“There are still thousands of tickets for eligible students which haven’t been processed. Then there are people getting notifications today or yesterday that there is no room for them on the bus,” Mr Canney said.
“In rural areas it is a total fiasco. Parents don’t know how they will get their children to school and they have been left in limbo at very short notice.”
Darren O’Rourke, TD for Meath East and Sinn Féin’s transport spokesman, said the lack of school bus places is on a “scale we have never seen before” and “spans the whole of my constituency”.
“Every year the scheme is oversubscribed, but this year something different is happening,” he said.
In Skyrne, Co Meath, parents of 35 children frozen out of the scheme are looking at contracting a private operator, Mr O’Rourke said, but added this would leave them considerably worse off.
“These families were legitimately expecting a €500 (annual concessionary cost) break from the State this year — now they are facing the prospect of paying up to €2,000 to contract a private bus service, and will be driven further into financial hardship rather than getting any respite,” he added.
In Emo, a small rural village in Co Laois, a group of eligible parents who applied for a schoolbus to Mountmellick under the School Transport scheme were denied bus tickets and have written a letter to the Government on the issue.
Emo National School is seen as the feeder school for Mountmellick secondary school, which is 9km away. However, families were told Portlaoise and Monasterevin were the closest schools, 12km from Emo.
According to the group, “Mountmellick Community School appeals to families for many reasons. It’s located in a country town, less busy than bigger towns of Portlaoise, Portarlington and Monasterevin. There is easier access into and out Mountmellick compared to the larger towns mentioned above.
“Most importantly, it is a mixed-sex school, single-sex schools such as Scoil Chríost Rí and CBS in Portlaoise are less favoured by parents.
“The existing criteria for school transport cuts off access to the scheme to families with a tradition of attending particular schools in their locality, such as our own example. Furthermore, the scheme does not work for efficiently for families on a practical or financial basis,” the group said.
“This system that decides eligibility for the service should be scrapped. To pay privately for the service of commercial contractor is prohibitively expensive for many families.”
Fine Gael Senator for Cork Tim Lombard has called for qualified bus drivers over the age of 70 to be used.