The safety record of the country's school bus service was tonight defended by a Minister for State at the Department of Education in the Dail.
Ms Sile de Valera praised the skill of school bus drivers and the expertise of Bus Eireann who administer the national service.
Earlier TDs and the National Parents Council called for seatbelts to be installed in all school buses in Ireland following the death of five schoolgirls in yesterday's crash near Navan Co Meath.
"The safety of the school bus service is a very good one," said Ms de Valera, who has special responsibility for youth affairs in the Education Department.
She was responding to Labour's education spokesperson Jan O'Sullivan, who called for a safety review of the school bus fleet.
The State's school transport service, which is operated by Bus Eireann on behalf of the Education Department, ferries 138,000 children to and from schools every day - covering 40m miles each year.
Ms de Valera said changes would be made to the system if considered necessary by any of the three investigations currently investigating the accident, which injured 46.
She said all buses in the school transport fleet were checked annually for roadworthiness.
"No bus which is unsafe or dangerous is allowed on to the road to carry children," she added.
The Education Department had discussions with Bus Eireann about phasing out the 'three for two' arrangement in which each two-seater bench is allocated to three pupils.
However an EU directive making safety belts mandatory will come into force for all school buses registered in Ireland after May 2006.
A spokesman for Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda said yesterday the absence of seatbelts may have "potentially contributed to the seriousness of the injuries".
Earlier Fine Gael spokeswoman for transport Olivia Mitchell said there was no excuse for condemning children to a second-class school bus network.
"Although the cause of this catastrophe is still unknown, we can no longer tolerate a lax approach to road safety, particularly one which is officially sanctioned by the State."
She added: "It's hard to avoid the conclusion that lives could have been saved in this accident if seatbelts had been installed and were in use. For some reason the State insists that car drivers must assume responsibility for ensuring their passengers wear seatbelts, and yet the State does not believe that its agents have the same duty of care to schoolchildren."