The Minister with responsibility for school transport at the Department of Education Sile de Valera said she wanted the entire school bus fleet replaced with buses with seatbelts.
Ms de Valera was speaking on RTE's lunchtime news programme.
She said she wanted to phase out the practice of having three students for every two seats. However she said there was no point in phasing out the 'three for two' arrangement unless the buses replacing them were fitted with seat belts.
She said she had looked into the possibility of getting seat belts installed in the existing fleet but had been advised by engineers that retrofitting could be dangerous.
Over 800 buses would be needed to replace the entire school fleet. Ms de Valera said it was not just a question of funding preventing the replacing of the fleet but the logistical consideration of finding enough right-hand drive buses before next September.