Cork children left without transport to special schools 

Approximately 80 Cork children with additional needs who have been awarded school transport have yet to receive it, and one Cork mum says an unreliable bus service is causing her son to miss school.

A Department of Education spokesperson said that Bus Éireann, which manages the service, had experienced issues, such as driver unavailability, at short notice and no bids to run certain bus services.

They said that as of April 23, there were about 80 pupils sanctioned under the relevant scheme who were awaiting transport to Cork schools, and that the company was “prioritising the arrangement of transport solutions” for them.

But Mayfield mum Leanne Thomspon says that the bus her six-year-old son Eldon is meant to get to East Cork Community Special School is not reliable.

"There’s no permanent bus driver, the school are telling me that they’re taking it day by day. I’m finding out at six or seven in the evening that the bus isn’t running the next day," she told The Echo.

“I can’t get a lift when they give me such short notice. We would be really late in the morning getting a bus and train.

“There’s been so many days it’s happened, it feels like he’s been out of school more often than he’s been in.” 

Eldon started school in November, after weeks of uncertainty due to extension works. In February, Ms Thompson received an email saying the bus would not run “until further notice”. It recommenced a few days later, but the uncertainty is constant, she said.

Ms Thompson does not drive due to a medical issue, and has a younger child in preschool, meaning Eldon often has to miss school when the bus does not run.

A Bus Éireann spokesperson told The Echo that a bus service to the school did not run recently “due to unforeseen circumstances”, but all services are now operating as normal.

The data on children without transport was provided to Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould, who said: “Parents of children with additional needs are told to accept whatever school placement they can get, often miles away from their home. They are told that the distance doesn’t matter because there will be transport available. This isn’t true.” 

He added: “We have a government spending millions on a campaign to increase school attendance while simultaneously forcing absence on some of the most vulnerable children in this state.

“We have children with no transport and children with unreliable transport. How can they not see the hypocrisy in their actions?”