Longford's school transport system has gone ‘haywire’, meeting hears

The claims were made at a meeting of Longford County Council last week on foot of calls by Cllr Garry Murtagh for Education Minister Norma Foley to carry out a review of the broader school transportation system.

Cllr Murtagh said his reservations had been exacerbated further by a prohibition on bus drivers over the age of 70 to undertake school runs despite no embargo being in place for those same individuals to carry out duties for Local Link and school tours.

“There is clearly no communication between the departments and there is clearly no communication to the people that are representing families, in particular hard working families who are stressed about how their kids are going to get home from school,” he said.

“It’s a serious issue for people and it’s affecting their workplace environment.

“Bus drivers over 70 years of age can drive for Local Link and bring kids on school tours and matches but they cannot do a school run which is absolutely ridiculous and I don’t know how they came up with that.”

His party colleague Cllr Paraic Brady echoed those sentiments, climing his heart was “broken” at how umpteen parents and schoolgoing children had been left out in the cold by the saga.

The Fine Gael councillor said some students were being offered tickets to schools they were not even attending while others had been declined tickets despite having previously been allocated bus passes.

“It seems in the Department one doesn’t know what the other is at,” he said, adding how last year he had called for a special helpline to be set up for councillors to deal with requests from concerned parents.

“I had a family there in north Longford this year and none of them even going to the school and at least ten families who had students that wanted to go and repeat their Leaving Cert and were refused after doing four years in the school.

“Sure the whole system is completely and utterly haywire. When you ring them (Department) you are told they are not in the catchment area but sure these students have been in the same area for the last four years. My heart is broken on this. Some of these buses aren’t even full with five or six places available and they are refusing students places on them.”

Cllr Brady said problems linked to the issuing of tickets arose when a more relaxed approach was taken to the approval of school bus tickets.

“As far as I am concerned they created a can of worms handing out free bus tickets willy nilly and all of a sudden they don’t know who is going where.

“Let the kids go to the school where they want to get educated, put a bus on for them and get on with the business at hand.”