Students walk 17km to Trim in protest at lack of school transport

Families from Ballivor who walked 17km from Ballivor to Trim this morning, highlighted the huge financial and time pressures they are under to get their children to school.

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, " she said.

The protesting children and parents took to the roads this morning to protest at the lack of school bus places, starting off at the NEC building at 7.40am to walk the 17km of country roads.

Carrying placards calling on Minister Norma Foley to intervene, parents and schoolchildren set off at dawn to highlight the current shortage of school bus places.

Deputy Peadar Toibin who participated in the walk 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.

“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 a climate change crisis that we still have thousands of parents driving their children to school."

The Department of Education said that to date 126,000 tickets have been issued for the school bus scheme and 88,000 of those were to eligible students, after which concessionary places were then issued.

Additional funding had been made available in the budget and initial focus will be on those who applied in time and those who had concessionary places in the past, butis subject to capacity considerations and sourcing vehicles. In some areas it may take a number of weeks to provide the additional spaces.