The need for a larger school bus to serve Vicarstown and Emo and alleviate the lack of school transport has received local political backing.
Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley is calling on the Deptartment of Education to provide a larger bus to cater for students in the Vicarstown / Emo areas to attend secondary schools in Portlaoise.
“I know of 12 families who have been told that there are no places on school buses to Portlaoise from September. They are being told to attend schools in Athy or Monasterevin in order to avail of school transport. Stradbally and Emo were traditionally ‘feeder schools’ for Portlaoise Secondary Schools,” he said.
“One girl going into 5th year in Scoil Chríost Rí, Portlaoise and who had transport throughout her time in the school is now told it is no longer available to her,” he added.
He said that St. Paul’s Secondary School in Monasterevin is at full capacity and each year they have added prefab buildings to cope.
“They are currently waiting on a new school to be built. Athy is also full to capacity and is not accepting pupils from the Vicarstown area. Currently there is no bus service to Monasterevin and the Department would need to provide a new service on this route.
“All the parents in these cases are working and are unable to do school runs and they have the support of the Principal and Deputy Principal in Scoil Chríost Rí,” Deputy Stanley said.
To compound the problem, he said they are only discovering a few weeks before schools re-open that they have no school transport.
“There was a 52 seater bus on the Vicarstown / Emo / Portlaoise route previously and the sensible solution would be to provide a 52 seater again instead of the 33 seater bus now in place.
“There is a greater demand for school bus places due to the huge population increase in the county in recent years. It would be a lot more cost effective to provide a larger bus to Portlaoise than to start a new extra service to Monasterevin,” he said.
The case has been brought to the attention of Minister of State at the Department of Education, John Halligan, who has responsibility for school bus transport.
“I have written to Minister Halligan seeking a meeting to discuss a resolution to the problem. What is needed now is some flexibility and a bit of common sense and I’m waiting on a response from the Minister on this.”
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