Madam, - The nation mourns the loss of five young lives and our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those injured or killed last Monday, and with the community in Navan. The scale of the tragedy and the fact that it occurred on a routine journey home from school resonates with parents and children throughout the country. Those affected will need a lot of support for a long time to come.
I would like to pay tribute to all those engaged in the emergency response. I saw at first hand the superb effort by all staff in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and was most impressed by the calm professionalism of all concerned, with so many off-duty staff coming in to help. The emergency services on the scene were excellent and ensured a speedy transfer to either Navan or Drogheda, thereby preventing further fatalities.
The initial shock and sadness will inevitably be replaced by serious questions as to how this could happen: how safe is our school bus fleet? Were road conditions a factor? How can we prevent such tragedies in the future? Every day up to 140,000 children and adolescents use a school bus to travel to and from school - almost all of us have experienced the fun and mayhem involved. Most school buses are old and do not have appropriate seatbelts. In contrast, if you travel to school by car and are under 12 years old, you are obliged by law to sit in the rear and wear a seatbelt.
A recent study of Irish road traffic accidents involving under-16s showed that not wearing a seatbelt put a child passenger at far greater risk of death or serious injury .
Bus crashes are rare, but it is certain that if seatbelts are not worn the risk of death is far higher. Public concern following a serious bus crash in England seven years ago prompted legislation requiring all school buses to have proper seatbelts for all children. Most other EU countries have such legislation. Are we going to let our children travel in school buses which fall short of the highest safety standards?
Surely not. The only positive legacy from this tragedy would be a new, safer school bus fleet. We must ensure its realisation in memory of those five beautiful girls so tragically lost this week. - Yours, etc.,
ALF NICHOLSON, Consultant Paediatrician, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, Co Louth.
Madam, - Your edition of May 26th reports Minister for Education Mary Hanafin stating before an Oireachtas committee that there was no evidence either the absence of seatbelts on school buses or the practice of seating three pupils to two seats was in any way related to the tragedy in Co Meath.
Yet your paper and other media have reported that children were thrown out of the bus windows on to the road. - Yours, etc,
JOSEPH O' BRIEN, Hermitage Crescent, Lucan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Looking at the pictures of those five girls who were killed in Meath on Monday should bring to our minds the times when we have been careless in the use of a car, maybe drove too fast within speed limits when it was not safe to do so, or drove a car after a few drinks when we knew we shouldn't have, or overtook a vehicle when we weren't 100 per cent sure that it was safe to do so.
If we all looked at our own driving habits and saw how, by driving more carefully, we could make the roads safer for everybody else, then perhaps those girls won't have died in vain. - Yours, etc,
DAVID DWYER, Copper Hill, Ballintemple, Cork.