School-bus crash road not in need of repair — council

Cork County Council is to write to Bus Éireann to say that there are no issues with the road on which a school bus crashed in North Cork earlier this month.

Senior council engineers told councillors at a meeting of the northern division, in Mallow, that they could see no problem with the road at Cregg South, Ballyhooly, where the bus carrying 50 secondary school pupils overturned on September 14.

The accident occurred at 8.20am, as the coach, operated by a Bus Éireann sub-contractor, was bringing students to three Fermoy secondary schools — Colaiste an Chraoibhin, St Colman’s, and Loreto.

Despite the coach overturning onto its side and a small tree piercing the rear cabin, trapping three students, none of the occupants of the bus was seriously injured.

The children were removed to the PE hall of Coláiste an Chraoibhín, in Fermoy, where an emergency response centre was established, and four of them were subsequently transferred to Cork University Hospital with minor injuries.

Three investigations are now under way: by Bus Éireann, the gardaí, and the Health and the Safety Authority.

However, Cork County Council says there is no issue with the road or its surface. The council’s director of roads, Tom Stritch, said the road had been examined by engineers, who concluded that there was no need to carry out any work on it.

He made his comments after Cllr Noel McCarthy (Lab) said that since the crash parents were fearful there might be something wrong with the camber.

Senior engineer Aidan Weir also told Cllr McCarthy that they may put up additional signage near where the bus overturned, but there were no plans to do anything with the road.