Relief for families as extra school bus seats secured

There was good news for Moynalvey families this week as 33 extra school bus seats were made available to local children for the National School route.

Cllr Caroline O’Reilly welcomed the news following her representations to the Department of Education, but she also spoke of her “enormous disappointment” with the overall allocation of tickets to children on school buses in Meath this year and vowed to “continue to fight” for every child in need of a school bus place to be allocated one.

Cllr O’Reilly has made numerous representations to the Department of Education and to the CEO of Bus Eireann on this issue and expressed her concern at the sheer amount of children unsuccessful in obtaining places on school buses in their area.

“I’m still very concerned for local school children left without a place on the school bus. It’s not fair in a rural area, with no adequate pedestrian walkways, that just because you’re inside an arbitrary 3.2km distance from a school you’re left to your own devices. Roads are more dangerous; too much so for children to walk to school.”

“I’m a parent, I live in a rural area and I commute in to Dublin to work. I understand the difficulties for parents around this issue. Lots of local parents work commute and aren’t in a position to do school runs. They have to go to work, to pay their mortgage and have to commute. I’m angry and they’re angry at the system on this.”

Cllr O’Reilly has noted the numerous flaws in the concessionary ticket system. Using the example of Moynalvey, Cllr O’Reilly noted that 20 local children did not receive a place on the bus purely because they live within 3.2km of the school. However, this area is unsuitable for pedestrians, with no footpath and being a main route for the local quarry.

“Thankfully, since making representations another loop was implemented for this bus route and the vast majority of children have received tickets but I am still working on this as not everyone has. Parents in other locations around Meath East are still worrying about how they will get their children to school. I have been inundated with requests for support”

“A priority for me is education. It is wholly unfair that our local children can’t even get to school safely to get the education they need, deserve and have a right to,” she concluded.