THE INTRODUCTION of a €500 a year charge for school transport is understood to be under consideration in pre-budget discussions.
The current charge is €300 for second-level students, whereas primary schoolchildren travel free on the school bus.
The McCarthy report on public service numbers and expenditure recommended the imposition of a €500 charge on all pupils.
A spokesman for Minister for Education Mary Coughlan declined to comment on the matter except to say that, in tandem with all departments, the Department of Finance was “considering a range of options as part of the Estimates process”.
Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said: “If they were to proceed with this it would hugely disadvantage rural communities.
“It would also be a health and safety issue in that children would be encouraged to travel to school by private car rather than public bus. Effectively this would demolish the notion of free education for primary schoolchildren in rural Ireland. Next September the enrolment in primary schools will be more than 500,000, which is the highest since 1886.”