Angry parents hold car protest over school bus places

IOLANDA RYAN will have to drive 120 miles each week to get her son Diarmuid to and from school unless a bus seat is provided for him. And she's not alone.

Families of up to 40 students at Salesian College in Pallaskenry, Co Limerick, are furious that there are no spaces on school buses for their children. This morning they will take part in a go-slow protest in front of the school buses along the eight-mile route from Mungret to Pallaskenry.

Ms Ryan and another family plan to share the driving to Pallaskenry but this could mean a 40-mile daily trip for each of them two or three days a week.

On Diarmuid's first day at school yesterday, Ms Ryan had to leave home in Raheen on the outskirts of the city at 8.10am for the 10-mile journey. At 3pm, she was waiting outside the school to bring Diarmuid and his friend, Stephen O'Connor, home again.

"The frustrating thing is that Diarmuid's older brother, Eoin, who finished in the same school last year, was able to travel on the school bus. But even if we brought Diarmuid five miles every morning to the school bus route boundary, there still isn't space for him."

Diarmuid, 12, is one of more than 30 children at Salesian College without a school bus place because of changes to Department of Education school transport arrangements.

A department spokesperson said a number of pupils from the city area had been facilitated with full transport since 2001, when parents said they could not get a place for their child in the city, but this is not continuing because there are now places for all children in the city's second-level schools.

However, Ms Ryan said space in Crescent Comprehensive school, just a few hundred yards from her home, was reserved for pupils from other primary schools and the fact her other son attended Salesian College guaranteed a place there for Diarmuid.