School bus crash - Parents want action, not excuses

There is absolutely no reason why the Government should have to wait for the reports of the three investigations into Monday’s tragic school bus crash before deciding on any new investment in the fleet, as Taoiseach Bertie Ahern asserted yesterday.

One is not dependent on the other, although the grounds for those investigations may well be a consequence of the already inordinate delay by the Government in addressing concerns over the school bus fleet.

The reports may well point to several factors which caused the crash, but it is unacceptable for the Government to procrastinate any longer on this crucial issue on the spurious grounds that their conclusions will influence its decision on the fleet.

Long before the fatal crash occurred last Monday the Government had been alerted on several occasions in recent years that the school bus fleet should be equipped with seat belts and an end put to the situation where there were three students per two seats.

As well as the recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee of six years ago, calls from the National Parents Council (NPC) seven years ago, and the Children’s Rights Alliance five years ago, there were half a dozen other reviews which were ignored.

Consequently, it is utterly disingenuous of Education Minister Mary Hanafin to complain about the impossibility of fitting seat belts on all school buses by next September because they had at least six years in which to begin to address the problem.

That deadline was delivered by NPC president Eleanor Petrie, whose organisation represents primary school parents, frustrated by the knowledge that they had for years campaigned on bus safety in the fear of such an accident occurring, and warning that one would. That organisation has threatened to boycott school buses from next September unless they are fitted with seat belts.

As pointed out by Síle de Valera, Minister of State at the Department of Education, with responsibility for school bus services, every school day, more than 138,000 children travel on those buses.

That puts the potential for injuries into perspective, as well as the fact that the vehicles the children travel in leave much to be desired.

She said the three-per-two seats arrangement would be phased out within a two-year period, but that the department had been advised against the “retro-fitting” of seat belts, that is, fitting them in buses currently without them.

Which is rather a perplexing answer, considering that another newspaper reported a claim by Bus Éireann bosses that they had asked the Government for money to install the seat belts on school buses, not once, but twice last year and were ignored.

Whether through good fortune or otherwise, the safety record of school buses over the years has been relatively good, but that is hardly a consolation to the families and friends of the five girls killed in the crash, whose funerals take place today and tomorrow. Neither is that record due to any measures the Government has taken, but rather in spite of its vacillation.