School bus fire raises fleet safety fears

BUS ÉIREANN and the gardaí have launched separate investigations into a fire that destroyed a school bus in Meath yesterday.

The incident happened exactly four weeks after five schoolgirls from the county died and dozens of their schoolmates were injured when their school bus overturned in Kentstown.

No passengers were on board the bus when the blaze broke out yesterday on the road at Cushinstown, but students doing Junior Cert and Leaving Cert exams were waiting to be picked up by the vehicle.

Bus Éireann dispatched mini-buses to collect the students and bring them to their schools. A company spokeswoman said all of them made it in time for the start of their exams.

The incident happened while the 12-year-old bus was being driven from the Bus Éireann depot in Drogheda to Garristown in north county Dublin as part of the normal school run.

Company spokeswoman Erica Rosengrave said the bus driver made it as far as Cushinstown when he noticed a burning smell. When he stopped the vehicle to investigate he discovered a small blaze.

The driver tried to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher but it quickly spread out of his control.

Two units of the fire brigade from Ashbourne and Drogheda attended the scene and put out the blaze, but the bus was destroyed.

It was later removed for technical examination to the Bus Éireann depot in Broadstone, Dublin, which is also headquarters for the investigation into last month’s tragedy.

The incident has left fresh questions hanging over the safety of the country’s school bus fleet as the communities of Beauparc and Yellow Furze prepare for the one-month anniversary of the tragedy which claimed the lives of Junior Cert students, Lisa Callan and Aimee McCabe, both aged 15; second year student, Sinead Ledwidge, also 15; and Leaving Cert students, 17-year-old Deirdre Scanlon, and Claire McCluskey, 18, on May 23.

Bus Éireann has appointed an eight-member board of experts to investigate the accident.

Ms Rosengrave said yesterday their work was continuing. Separate investigations by the Health and Safety Authority and the gardaí are also under way.

All of those injured in the accident, including the drivers of two cars which collided at the scene, have since been released from hospital. The driver of the bus, who escaped serious injury, has been on sick leave since the tragedy.

Books of condolence opened by the Diocese of Meath after the accident were formally closed yesterday. A selection of the thousands of tributes and messages of sympathy that were received from around the world is being compiled for presentation to the bereaved families.