School bus tragedies are first officially recorded for six years

THE Meath schoolgirls are the first recorded fatalities involving children on school buses since 1998.

The tragedy brings to 18 the number of children killed in school bus accidents since 1994.

Before the crash near Kentstown on Monday, statistics by the Department of Education show there have been no recorded deaths of children on school buses for the past six years.

However, the official figures don’t include a bus tragedy that occurred in Dublin in February 2000, when a schoolgirl was killed after been dragged along by a bus she was getting off.

According to the department’s figures, there was:

* One death in 1994.

* Three deaths in 1995.

* No deaths in 1996.

* One death in 1997.

* Eight deaths in 1998.

* No deaths between 1999 and 2004.

* Five deaths in 2005.

The year 1998 was the worst on record. In one incident in Co Wicklow two schoolboys - Kevin O’Leary, aged 10, and 11-year-old Robert Cullen - were killed when a school bus collided with a truck.

Three adults - the driver of the school bus and two other passengers - were also killed. The two boys had been wearing special safety harnesses.

Not included in the figures is the death in February 2000 of seven-year-old Jodie Smyth, from Finglas, Dublin.

She was dragged along the road when her coat caught in the door of a school bus she had just stepped off.

In January 2004, a school bus driver in Co Limerick saved seven children when he evacuated them from his bus, which had suddenly burst into flames.

In January 2001, four schoolgirls were injured when they fell through the back window of a school bus near Tuam, Co Galway.

There were no seat belts on the bus.

A Department of Education spokeswoman said all school buses have an annual road worthiness test.

She said most accidents occur when students are getting on and off buses.

She said a pilot project was set up last January in Ennis, Co Clare, in which a warning flashing lights system is used to alert motorists to slow down in the vicinity of a school bus.