Relief for Moynalvey schoolchildren as school bus service to start from Monday

There was relief for 16 Moynalvey schoolchildren who been stranded without a bus service for the past two weeks, when they learned this morning (Thursday) that the school bus to Scoil Ui Riada in Kilcock will be in place from Monday,

There had been anger and frustration in the area when the Moynalvey children had been left without school transport due to a lack of drivers or contractors,

"We got an email this morning to let us know the bus will be up and running from Monday," said Colleen McCormack whose two children were entitled to a place on the bus.

"We are delighted and relieved. It has taken a lot of pressure off us. We had been car pooling and trying to make it work, but it was causing a lot of problems," she said.

On the first week back to school there has been 91 students from the Moynalvey area without school transport, but buses were provided last week for students attending Moynalvey National School and Scoil Dara In Kilcock.

Education Minister Helen McEntee welcomed the news and acknowledged that the situation had caused a lot of stress for parents.

"My focus is on solving these issues as quickly as possible and we are still working through other routes around the county and country."

She said she wanted to see all of the timelines come forward for school transport next year.

“There's no point in people getting tickets and problems arising a week before they go back to school. I want to see people applying, I want to see people getting their payments paid, I want to see them getting their tickets issued, and I want to see all of the contracts and tendering happening much earlier, so when issues arise, we can resolve it quickly. That's my objective for next year,” she said.

“I suppose the challenge every year is that we're increasing the number of students who are getting bus tickets, so we need to make sure we have the drivers and the buses and the companies to deal with that.

“There's been a scenario where there are children who have gotten their tickets but through no fault of a lot of people, there haven't been companies applying for tenders. For unforeseen circumstances people have had to pull out, companies and drivers."

She said the department was working very closely with Bus Éireann, who provide about 90 per cent of the school transport to try and get all these issues resolved quickly. So every single day, different areas, different routes, different individuals, are getting their issues resolved.