School bus fiasco leaves students on side of road – Tóibín

Aontú leader, Peadar Tóibín, TD, has said that students in his constituency will be left at the side of the road unless urgent capacity is added to school transport.

The Meath West TD said: “My office has been inundated with queries on school transport. We have a student in Athboy who has applied twice for a seat on a school bus but hasn’t heard anything back.

"There are students who are being told that they’ll have to walk 1.2km to get a bus to school in Trim – their closest school – but would be offered a bus outside their doors to a further away school.”

He said a parent from Delvin whose child attends St Finian’s College, Mullingar, pays a private coach firm each week to take the student to school and back. Approximately 50 other students use that service to attend secondary schools in Mullingar as Bus Éireann does not service the route.

“This year the family will pay the private coach form €30 per week, (almost) €900 per year. This is at a time when cost of living expenses are excruciatingly high and other Bus Éireann users will get this service free,” said Deputy Tóibín.

“There are students in Longwood Killoyan who don’t have public transport – only a private bus for which they have to pay €50 per week – the parents of these students should be reimbursed by the department.”

Deputy Tóibín said there are about 10 children on the Kilmessan route who still don’t have places on the bus. “We see this happening every year, but the government seem to be slow learners. I’ve written to Bus Éireann about each of these cases. It is unacceptable that parents and students were only informed days before returning to school.”

The deputy said there are also many students locally who still have not yet received their bus tickets and have started back at school.

He said that some bus drivers have taken them anyway as they didn’t want to see anyone stuck, but does that leave them open to liability if anything happens now.

“Parents are spending hours on the phone on and off trying to get through to the school transport section, without success. When they eventually get through, they are being told there is no phone line for the Athlone office, which deals with their queries, and they can’t be provided with updates.”

Deputy Tóibín said there needs to be a systems of fairness and greater efficiency in ensuring enough school buses and drivers are in place to avoid last minute panic, and the minister for education “needs to get her act together on this as we can’t see a repeat of this scenario year in year out”.