The report of the Dublin Bus inquiry into the fatal bus crash at Wellington Quay which claimed five lives is due to be published next week - almost six weeks after the original deadline.
Dublin Bus has said the report has been completed and the final draft was issued to the drivers involved on April 28th.
However, its publication has been further delayed to allow the driver of the out-of-service bus which mounted a kerb and collided with passengers queuing to board the Maynooth bus, extra time to respond to it.
The inquiry committee, headed by the chairman of the audit review group in Dublin Bus and former head of Opel Ireland, Mr Arnold O'Byrne, initially had a six-week deadline. Dublin Bus announced last month that the deadline would not be met for "legal reasons".
The company had asked the three drivers involved to respond to the report by last Friday. The driver of the Maynooth bus and another driver who witnessed the crash elected to make no response. However, on Thursday, legal representatives of the driver of the out-of-service bus asked for an extension. Any submission must now be made by May 17th, and Dublin Bus said the report would be published "within days".
"Our legal advice was that the drivers had a right to reply, but the deadline of May 17th will not be extended and that has been made perfectly clear," a spokeswoman for Dublin Bus said. She added that there would be no further analysis resulting from any submission by the driver.
It is understood that the team investigating the accident for Dublin Bus is likely to cite an error by the driver of the out-of-service bus as a cause of the accident, and has definitively ruled out the possibility that the accident was caused by mechanical failure.
