Save Our Seats!

Protest in Killydoon over school bus tickets

It should have been a morning of great excitement and photos of children in gleaming uniforms heading back on their first day to school. But it was a different scene in Killydoon.

Eighteen students and their parents protested this morning after missing out on a concessionary school bus ticket.

The protest took place at around 7.30am on Monday morning to highlight the necessity for an additional bus service to transport children to secondary schools in Cavan Town.

Those gathered called upon the Department of Education and Bus Eireann to provide services for all students who require a seat to get to school, a call echoed by more parents across the county.

The students, living in the Ballyjamesduff/Granard catchment areas, have missed out due to the ‘nearest school rule’ and a lack of capacity on existing buses.

The concessionary ticket system means that children may not receive a seat on the public school bus as they do not attend the school closest to them geographically.

The situation is particularly serious in the Mullahoran/Kilnaleck area where the parents of up to 20 children were informed by Bus Éireann that there are no seats available and refunds have already issued.

As the protest went on, eight children who had received a seat on the bus stood in solidarity with their fellow students before making their way to the bus as it arrived at Killydoon.

As it passed, protesters chanted ‘save our seats’ and ‘save our bus’ before around a dozen cars followed the school bus to drop children to school.

Ciara Donohoe is a nurse from the Ballymachugh Lavagh area who has a child in second year in Loreto College and another in fifth year in St Patrick's College. Both Ciara and her husband work in the “opposite direction” of the Cavan Town schools, meaning they are unable to drop or collect their children.

“It is just so unfortunate, all we need is just a bigger bus please and tickets,” she pleaded.

“Please please, we are urging and pleading Norma Foley, they say it’s up to the Department of Education, please give us our tickets.

“We need these to get to work and to get our kids to school safely.”

The bus departs just 900 metres from her home.

“I’ve actually just passed the bus on route to my home,” she fumed, adding that the bus also “passed twenty more houses or so that would normally have tickets".

“Here we are protesting [for a bus service] and I’ve just passed the bus on my route.”

Pauline Clarke is a parent of two kids in Breifne College in Cavan who have also been refused a school bus ticket for this year. She told The Anglo-Celt that it is not the first time that she has been left fighting for a seat for her children.

“For two years now we have got concessionary seat tickets from Ballinary.

“This year they’ve been pulled,” she lamented.

The Kilnaleck woman told how she sat with Norma Foley and all the politicians from County Cavan in the Dáil last year about the issue and felt she was “getting somewhere".

“But we seem to be at this every year,” said an exasperated Pauline.

She described the concessionary ticket system as a “huge gamble every year".

“This has happened to me before, for the first two years for my eldest I paid €1320 on a private bus.

“We were lucky to get the tickets on the concessionary, especially when my second child started.

“So now this year, tomorrow we have to get back on a private bus €2,640 for the two of them for the year.

“It’s nuts, it’s ridiculous, it’s absolutely scandalous that a family is put under this much pressure.

“The nuts part about it is that I have to pay €2,640 for two kids when a woman down the road one kilometres is paying €125 for two kids.

“Bus Eireann think this is fine, it’s not fair on families to be doing this and children, that some children are in the same area getting the tickets and some children don’t.”

The mother of two claimed there was talk of using the Local Link service to transport children to school.

“They [the government] did say they’d use the local links, we have a local link sitting in Kilnaleck, they are not using it.

“They’ve said they are going to do these things, they’re not putting them in place, they need to act very very fast.

“There has to be a message sent somewhere that this is ongoing for years and years and somebody somewhere has to do something about this.”

Cavan Monaghan TD Brendan Smith attended the protest where he witnessed “worried” parents.

“Additional capacity on buses would solve this problem,” he said.

“I have appealed to Bus Eireann and indeed to the Department of Education for some time to deal with this issue.

“We know nowadays most parents are working outside the home, they are not in a position to drop their children off to school and to collect them in the afternoon."

Having witnessed a dozen cars following the school coach, the environmental impact was not lost on Deputy Smith.

“On the one hand government is saying that we need to reduce the amount of travel on our roads and at the same time we have the situation where parents would have to drop off children if additional bus capacity is not provided.”

“There is a tradition in this area of children attending schools in Cavan Town, they should be provided with transport. I have asked for a considerable number of years that the whole school transport scheme be reviewed, that the criteria be improved, and that we provide additional capacity on buses.

“We must expand services to meet the needs of communities,” he stated.

Fine Gael Cllr Winston Bennett also attended the protest, and said parents had been in contact with him for the last six weeks expressing concerns about tickets for school buses.

“It’s not parents who had a child going for the first time, it’s parents with children going into their Leaving Cert and that’s not fair on those children that this is happening to them.

“It’s a mess that happens nearly every year but it seems to be a lot worse this year,” he fumed.

Cllr Philip Brady said the situation is “gone beyond the point of ridiculous at this stage” with the school bus having passed and many parents driving after it.

“We’re dealing with this a long number of years now, we brought it up at a council meeting I think back in April or May to make sure that this wouldn't happen and again here we are today.

“As one of the parents said, 40 years ago when people were going to school we had buses for everybody and now with all the money we have in the world and all the technology, and we still can't get a bus for the kids, it seems a bit far-fetched.”

The Department of Education and Bus Eireann have been contacted for comment. Consult Wednesday’s newspaper for further detail.