Wexford student cycling 22 miles to school as she is ineligible for bus ticket — ‘this is unacceptable’
Wexford PeopleA student in Wexford is cycling over 20 miles to school every day due to the lack of bus services in their area. Under the School Transport Scheme only students attending their nearest school are automatically eligible for bus tickets, and Councillor Pat Barden said this is having a huge impact on those living in rural areas.
“I’ve had 30 calls about transport this month,” he said at the monthly meeting of Wexford County Council. “I spoke to a woman whose son is cycling five miles to school in Adamstown every day because he has no transport. He’s eleven-years-old.
“Her daughter is cycling 22 miles to New Ross. It’s unacceptable.”
Cllr Barden was responding to a motion submitted by Fianna Fáil councillors John Fleming, Donal Kenny, and Pip Breen, in which they called upon the education and transport ministers to regulate and reform the School Transport Scheme ticket allocation process.
Currently, students are only eligible for bus tickets if they live at least 3.2 km from their nearest national school or 4.8km from their nearest secondary school. They must also attend their nearest school.
In some instances, when buses aren’t filled, concessionary tickets are made available to students who don’t meet those criteria.
The councillors’ motion primarily focused on the timeframe for the processing of applications, and stated that families should be notified “no later than July 31 each year whether they have been allocated a school bus ticket”.
“The current uncertainty and delays place unnecessary stress and anxiety on parents, guardians and students during the summer months,” it continued. “A streamlined and accountable system is required to provide families with certainty and adequate time to prepare for the forthcoming school year.”
Although she was in favour of the motion, Cllr Aoife Rose O’Brien noted that this was the third year in a row that such a motion had been forwarded to the relevant departments.
“It’s upsetting that we have to continue to raise this on an annual basis, there were motions submitted on this for the past two years. It appears that politely calling for this to be changed is not going to do anything,” she said.
Meanwhile, Cllr Jim Codd said the problems ran deeper than the scheme.
“I am in regular contact with local bus companies, the elephant in the room is that they don’t have enough drivers, there’s a chronic shortage.”