£6.8m taxi farefor WELB kids

THE people of Northern Ireland paid out £6.8m in taxi fares to take pupils to schools in the Western Education and Library Board (WELB) over the past five years.

By The Newsroom

Published 21st Jul 2012, 16:08 BST

Over £60m was spent busing local pupils to school during the same period. The total transport bill in WELB between 2006 and 2011 was £73,322,942.

Education Minister John O’Dowd provided details of the expenditure in response to an Assembly Question.

Last year the Sentinel reported that taxi firms in the WELB area were getting £1.60 a mile ferrying children with special needs to school when community transport could do the same job for a fraction of the cost.

Sinn Féin MLA Phil Flanagan made the claim at a meeting of the Stormont Education Committee.