Re-examine mandatory retirement for over 70’s bus drivers at Bus Éireann

Ageist policy needs to be addressed says local Senator.

Fianna Fáil Senator Robbie Gallagher is calling for the mandatory retirement age of 70 years for school bus drivers at Bus Éireann to be lifted.

"This is discriminatory and an ageist policy that needs to be addressed and re-examined," he insists, saying that Oireahctas members will be back in September discussing school transport and "no doubt there will be a shortage of buses".

"But we will have a bigger problem in that there will be buses but nobody to drive them. We have a cohort of people who are fit and well, who are medically assessed, who have their driving licences and who are keen to work but, unfortunately, the system being adopted by Bus Éireann, the one-size-fits-all attitude, does not allow them to do so. There is no problem with a 70-plus-year-old driving a school bus in the UK so I do not see why there should be a problem here."

Sen Gallagher says there is a "large cohort" of drivers taking up the job post retirement.

"Quite a lot of whom are driving school buses and very happy to do so. It is not a 40-hour-a-week job; it is an hour or an hour and a half in the morning and perhaps the same in the afternoon. It is not overly taxing, and surely to God the same medical assessment carried out by Bus Éireann on a 69-year-old who is deemed capable of driving a school bus could be carried out on a 70-year-old or a 71-year-old," said Sen Gallagher. "Bus Éireann needs to examine this. I ask that the Ceannaire write to the Minister about this issue and ask him to re-examine this criterion adopted by Bus Éireann.”