The Government's review of safety on school buses is expected to be completed by the end of this month, according to the Department of Education. The review was commissioned last year by the Minister of State for Education, Mr Willie O'Dea, and is expected to be complete "within a matter of weeks" as another disagreement over school bus safety broke out.
Bus Éireann has rejected allegations by Fine Gael's public enterprise spokesman, Mr Jim Higgins, that its school bus fleet was "ramshackle". Mr Higgins said the vast majority of the 600 school buses should be scrapped and replaced on a phased basis with 100 new buses every year.
Categorically rejecting the allegations, the company said the fact that a bus "is old doesn't imply a lack of safety". A spokesman said all school buses had a roadworthiness certificate and underwent an annual test and all vehicles were inspected in depots every six weeks. "They comply with all the requirements of current road traffic legislation," he said.
In the past year, 120 buses had been replaced with vehicles from the scheduled services fleet or bought second-hand in Britain. The spokesman added that "the present level of funding for school transport does not provide for the purchase of new school buses".
Mr Higgins pointed to the maintenance reports on two school buses in Claremorris, 21 and 19 years old, one of which had had 23 breakdowns over a three-year period while the second bus had 22 breakdowns in the same period.
"I have been swamped by parents but also by the bus-drivers who say driving is a nightmare, when you have 80 children stranded five miles from school," Mr Higgins said.
It was a "great exaggeration" to say children would be stranded, the Bus Éireann spokesman said. All drivers were supplied with mobile phones.
He added that the faults in the two buses were over 3½ years and it was an indication of how thorough the system was that they had the maintenance records for each vehicle. "Defects can develop in any vehicle while in service and you can never totally eliminate them."
Mr Higgins criticised the transfer of buses from scheduled services, saying "if a bus is not deemed to be suitable for public transport then it is not suitable for transporting children". The spokesman said it was standard procedure "the world over" that when buses reached a certain mileage they were moved to a lower-mileage service.
