School transport - System is a mess across the country

THE appalling mess of the State’s school transport system was painfully illustrated yesterday’s when private operators refused to provide the service in Sligo and Leitrim.

Failure to resolve an ongoing pay row with Bus Éireann disrupted hundreds of children trying to get to school. They will be hit again today.

This debacle comes on top of the controversy raging over the size of classes in Irish schools. Despite the Coalition’s pre-election pledge to achieve a better teacher-pupil ratio, our schools rate as the second most overcrowded in Europe.

Illustrating the transport mess, the long-term future of a Co Limerick secondary school remains uncertain because of its location. Drawn up in 1967, the catchment area for Pallaskenry college is an anachronism as half its students are outside the transport grid.

Protesting parents are right to demand that the demographic map be redrawn.