School transport review should focus on children with special educational needs
An Oireachtas committee wants concerns around school transport for children with special educational needs to be the focus of a review of the entire system.
The recommendation is one of four by TDs and senators who held hearings over the past year around the services, for which taxpayers spend close to €200m annually.
The system is operated for the Department of Education by Bus Éireann, which contracts out most routes to private operators. The first recommendation in the Oireachtas education committee’s report is for a full review of arrangements in place since 1975, under which the department pays the company a school transport management charge.
However, after such a review, the committee recommends a review of the entire scheme that takes account of concerns raised in their report “and in particular the concerns raised in relation to the provision of transport for children with special educational needs”.
Of 117,000 students carried daily, 12,700 have special educational needs and are brought by bus or taxi.
At its hearings with the department, Bus Éireann, the National Council for Special Education, and representatives of school boards and parents, the committee heard issues facing children with special educational needs and their families.
“The committee is aware that there is very little flexibility in relation to children who have special needs and are deemed eligible if they are attending the nearest recognised mainstream school or unit that is or can be resourced to meet their special educational needs,” chairperson and Fianna Fáil TD Fiona O’Loughlin said in her foreword.
She said the committee recognises that the provision of education for children with special educational needs is complex and that schools in whose catchment area they live may not be the best- resourced facility to address children’s individual needs.
“There needs to be flexibility within the scheme to ensure that the children with special educational needs get the best education possible and that the school transport scheme facilitates this,” wrote Ms O’Loughlin.
The report recommends all vehicles used for school transport be put through a full safety audit. Bus Éireann told the committee in September that, in addition to statutory requirements, nearly one-in-five buses contracted to the scheme are independently inspected and any that fall short of standards are immediately withdrawn from service until issues are rectified.
