2026-01-15

105. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for Transport if he will resolve the issues concerning bus drivers aged over 70; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2626/26]

I ask for the Minister to resolve the issue of school bus drivers, when they reach their 70th birthday, having to bow out and retire. This has to be addressed because it is causing problems. I have been raising this issue since January of last year. Right throughout the year, I have been at it. I hope there is some progress being made.

I thank the Deputy for asking the question. I know he is passionate about it, as are a lot of Deputies and Ministers, because it is something we need to get sorted. The overriding consideration in relation to age limits for bus drivers has been safety. It is a matter for relevant bus companies, including Bus Éireann, to set their own terms and conditions in relation to employment, including retirement age. Bus Éireann applies a retirement age of 70 years for drivers across its wider road passenger services, including semi-State PSO services and school transport services operated or managed on behalf of the Minister for education. This approach is consistent across the PSO cohort, as neither Dublin Bus nor Go Ahead Ireland employ drivers over the age of 70. Bus Éireann’s policy of operating services with drivers up to age 70 is grounded in safety considerations. This policy is informed by the company's operational experience and also by ongoing engagement with relevant stakeholders, including the RSA and other public operators. At this stage, I have had contact with Bus Éireann over the past year since I came into office. I have asked it to look at the requirements for people over 70. It has been looking at that. It has a safety board and an accessibility committee and they are considering whether to increase the upper age limit to 75 for its drivers. Bus Éireann is looking at this at the moment and it will continue to engage with the Departments of Education and Youth and Transport on all of this. Hopefully, we will get a conclusion on it which will be acceptable to all in the not-too-distant future.

I thank the Minister of State for that. The issue is straightforward: bus drivers on the school transport scheme cannot drive beyond their 60th birthday. They cannot drive a minibus for two or three hours a day with ten or 15 pupils on it, yet they can drive a 50- or 60-seater coach hundreds of miles, and are doing so. School bus operators are losing drivers every year, and in Laois this is a real problem. They are finding it very difficult to replace them because the work is part-time and really suits retired people. I emphasise this to the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. The cohort driving the school buses is largely retired people. People generally retire at 60 or 65 and get five or ten years' driving. I am not asking for them to keep going until 100 or 90 years of age; I am simply proposing that they go to 75 on the condition that they pass a strict medical test. This is the key. I do not want to endanger anybody. I can understand Bus Éireann and other bus operators being concerned, but there are real issues starting to arise here. I refer to somebody driving a minibus two or three hours a day five or ten miles to a local school. They can drive 50-, 60- and 70-seater coaches, which they are doing and I know people who are doing it, yet they cannot drive their local school bus. That is a ridiculous situation. The Minister of State is right that we need to address the safety issue, but we need to solve this issue as well.

A private operator can be asked by the school to bring a group from Galway to the zoo in Dublin and someone aged over 70 can drive the vehicle, but someone that age cannot drive students in the local area to the local school, a route with which they will be a lot more familiar. There is an issue there to be resolved. In all fairness, Bus Éireann is looking at that. It has to look at it from a safety perspective. It also has to look at it from a logistical point of view as to how this will work. This probably affects the private bus operators more than Bus Éireann because they have people who are well experienced and school bus runs are part-time work. This is a work in progress. The Department of education is involved in it as well as Bus Éireann. I will continue to work with them to try to find a solution, which the Deputy is requesting.

The school bus scheme is working fairly well, and it is good that is happening. I think problems were ironed out a bit quicker this year, and that is welcome. I acknowledge that. However, we have to have the drivers to fill the positions, and it is the Government's ambition, as I understand it, to expand the scheme, maybe to bring in people who are closer to the school and to reduce the distance from the school to qualify for it. If the Government is going to expand the scheme, that, along with an expanding population, will require more drivers. It is really important that we try to fix this because in September there were problems again trying to fill positions. Bus operators were frantically going around trying to get people to take on positions. We could extend the age by three, four or five years beyond 70 with a strict medical test. We do not want to see anybody put in danger. As I said, this has become a problem in Laois. I know it is starting to become a problem elsewhere because other Deputies have started raising it as well. The strict medical test is the issue. I ask the Minister and the Ministers of State to bear this in mind and to use their influence with Bus Éireann because the Department pays money to it every year. People's health is better now. They live longer now. Their health is better beyond 70. Seventy is the new 50.

I reassure the Deputy and every other Deputy in the House that this is a priority for the Department of Transport and that I have the support of the Ministers and the Government on this. We are making sure that any changes we make, or made, take into account all the safety factors that have to be considered as well. I agree with the Deputy. I see this in my constituency where private operators find it hard to get drivers to do part-time work and there are very well-qualified drivers who may be 70, 71, 72 or 73, who can do this and who were doing it last year but who cannot do it this year. We have to look at that and have a pragmatic approach, and that is what is being done at the moment. Hopefully, we will get the solution to it in the not-too-distant future.