A Clare Senator is calling for the urgent establishment of a cabinet sub committee to tackle school bus issues in the county.
It comes as parents in Corofin have become the latest to report difficulty with capacity issues on contracted services.
Bus Eireann claim that just 2% of all local routes have been affected by acute driver shortages and oversubscription of concessionary tickets.
However Ennistymon Fine Gael Senator, Martin Conway says the situation is having a dreadful impact on this cohort.
You can listen to the full interview below.
Bus Eireann Statement
Bus Éireann has now issued school transport tickets to over 132,000 students travelling on mainstream services. In addition to these numbers we expect to transport over 19,000 children with Special Educational needs for the new school year.
In recent weeks, Bus Éireann issued tickets for school transport routes where services had already been secured. Unfortunately, difficulties have arisen in specific locations with a small number of contracted services, where contractors have advised us that it has not yet been possible to provide vehicles / drivers in time for the start of the school year. This is against a back drop of Driver shortages being experienced in many sectors of the economy throughout the country.
In relation to services in the Corofin area, all families received communication from Bus Eireann in relation to this.
Bus Éireann made further contact with families on 1 September 2023 and extended the opening hours of its dedicated customer care call centre this weekend to assist families with School Transport queries. Families that have queries can continue to contact the call centre on: LoCall 0818 919 910. Operating hours are usually 09.00 – 17.00 Monday to Friday.
It can arise that seats are unused on given days, due to illness or for example after-school activities. In the event that a family no longer requires or does not intend to use their school transport ticket, they should return it to the local school transport office so that the seat can be reallocated.
The Department of Education has established an “Exceptional No Service Interim Grant”. The grant is available to families who have already received a school transport ticket from Bus Éireann, and where difficulties have meant that transport will not be in place for the start of the school year. Families do not need to make an application for the exceptional payment, those who have been issued a ticket, and do not have a service in place will be contacted directly by the Department.
Bus Éireann would like to apologise to the families affected and wishes to assure them that our School Transport team continues to prioritise arrangements to ensure transport can be put in place for them as soon as possible. Bus Éireann will contact families directly as soon as a solution is in available for their respective route.
