Haughey to announce plan for seat belts in schoolbuses

Junior Education Minister Sean Haughey will make his first official announcement in his new post today.

The son of the late former Taoiseach Charles Haughey is expected to reveal that all schoolbuses have now been fitted with seat belts.

Minister Haughey will also highlight concerns about vandalism of seatbelts, since the Department of Education initiated its €36.5m programme to fit all buses with the belts.

It is estimated 138,000 students use the school transport system.

Every schoolbus in the state was to be fitted with seat belts by the end of 2006 in compliance with an EU directive.

Increased government investment in bus safety followed the deaths of five teenage girls in a schoolbus crash in Navan in May 2005.

The bus had no seat belts.