IPPN

The taxpayer is coughing up more than €170m a year to provide school buses.

New figures show that in the three years between 2005 and 2007, the State spent €454m funding the school transport scheme.

The huge sum has led to calls for the scheme to be "re-examined in a very detailed way", given that most families now have access to their own transport.

The scheme was set up in the 1960s to ensure access to primary and post-primary education for children who, because of where they live, might have difficulty in attending school regularly.

However, the domestic and social situation has changed dramatically in the almost half a century since, and Fianna Fail TD Chris Andrews says the Government should look at revising the scheme.

Mr Andrews told the Herald: "It is hard for me as someone in the city to see how it is fully justified.

"It's very much a rural scheme and given the traffic in Dublin, if anything it's Dublin it should be in.

"It's a huge expense and I would have thought that there were other things higher up on the priority list."

Logistics

Deputy Andrews obtained the figures from the Department of Education who stated that it currently facilitates the transportation of over 135,000 children.

Junior Minister Sean Haughey said: "The school transport system is a very significant operation involving about 42 million journeys of over 82 million kilometres on 6,000 routes every school year."

However, the scheme which is operated by Bus Eireann ran up a massive bill of €122m in 2005, €160m in 2006 and €172m in 2007.

"While car usage has increased significantly since the introduction of the school transport scheme, the scheme aims to provide comfortable and safe transport for children travelling to and from school," said Mr Haughey.

The Minister noted that the increasing costs were as a result of new measures to ensure the highest standards.

Safety

In recent years the old system of allowing three children to travel in two seats has been phased out, providing all children with an adult seat. The fleet has subsequently increased in size and all buses have now been fitted with seat belts.

The financial contributions paid by families per term depend on how far they live from the school, with many children getting the service free of charge.

Review

Mr Haughey noted that "proposals for the progressing of the review of the scheme, including catchment boundaries which are included in the Programme for Government are well advanced".

But Mr Andrews said: "If they are looking to make savings within Government, this could be one way, because I believe most people availing of school transport have cars sitting in their driveways anyway."

- Kevin Doyle