Ballivor school bus protest tomorrow morning

Families from Ballivor will walk 17km from Ballivor to Trim tomorrow morning in protest at the lack of school bus places.

At least 17 children from Ballivor have been left without a place on the school bus to Trim, according to Celine Sherlock, whose daughter has been without a place since the start of the school year.

"We want to highlight the problems children are facing getting to school and we hope as many people as possible come out and support our protest, even those who were lucky enough to get places, " she said.

The protesting children and parents will walk the country road early in the morning to the schools in Trim, gathering at the NEC building at 7.40am.

Speaking in advance of the protest, Deputy Peadar Toibin said; “Bus Eireann and Minister Norma Foley must act now to fix the crisis faced every day by school children and their parents. Thousands of children across the country are still without a school bus place. It is three months since the Minister for Education promised that there would be a free bus place available to children who need them and yet this still has not materialised.

"This crisis epitomises the government’s approach. They announce to a fanfare a new plan but they don’t do the necessary work to ensure that the new plan can be delivered upon. The government should have done the work first and then when the capacity was in place they should have made the announcement. This incompetency can be seen right through the delivery of government administration in this country.

“Many parents now have to take time off work to drop their children to school. This causes tensions with employers and puts some parents in danger of losing their job. It does not make sense that in a cost of living crisis and an climate change crisis that we still have thousands of parents driving their children to school. You have government Ministers urging citizens to get out of their car and use public transport or walk and cycle to work and school. Yet in many towns and villages there is little or no public transport and cycleways are non-existent. This highlights the reality gap faced by families of life in regional rural Ireland between the pronouncements of Government Ministers and the complete lack of non-car transport infrastructure”.

“Now children will have to walk the 17km journey from Ballivor to Trim on country roads simply to highlight this crisis with Bus Éireann and the Minister for Education. We appeal to the Minister to listen to the children and fix this crisis now”.