[Article] Cuts to €1m a day school bus system must go ahead - Minister

n97 mini

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/cuts-to-euro1m-a-day-school-bus-system-must-go-ahead-minister-2807313.html

Cuts to €1m a day school bus system must go ahead - Minister

Junior Education Minister Ciaran Cannon today confirmed that the Government cutbacks to the rural school transport scheme will go ahead in September.

The new measures are part of a €3.5m euro saving and were made in the context of a jump in cost of bus services from €50m in 1997 to €180 million last year, Mr Cannon explained.

He said it meant that the Government now was spending €1 million a day on school buses and were actually carrying 34,000 less children on that system.

Under the cutbacks parents will have to pay €50 per child and a maximum of €650 per family from September. The cost to the government was €1000 a child and it was reasonable to ask parents to contribute that sum, the Minister said,

At a meeting in Listowel last night Mr. Cannon got an angry response from parents and teachers as he told the gathering that he had to go ahead with decisions taken by the previous government.

He said the only way out of the present situation would be if money could be found elsewhere in the department.

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Just saw this. Didn't realise the school bus system was so heavily subsidised.

Question: was the school bus system another example of the excesses of the Celtic Tiger, facilitating people to move out to the country in the knowledge that someone else would pay for their children's school transport? Certainly the huge increase in costs would seem to indicate there was an element of this.

mgmt

The cost to the government was €1000 a child

:eek:


This is the direct cost of bad and corrupt planning in this country.

foggy_lad

mgmt wrote: »

:eek:


This is the direct cost of bad and corrupt planning in this country.

Dont forget the cost of school busses rocketed in recent years after the tragedy in Meath as since then all private operators must provide a better standard of busses fitted with seat belts and bus eireann while not operating under this same restriction have had to seriously update their fleet of deathtrap bangers that they use for school services. there used to be a regular bus eireann school bus here in Carlow that the back emergency windowe kept falling out of and the bus kept breaking down, it was over 25 years old!

meanmachine3

:rolleyes:

Run_to_da_hills

Bring back hedge schools.

mikemac

Back in my day we went on the yellow Bus Éireann castoffs. Deathtraps they were and broken seats and leaking. During heavy rain and if we hit a deep puddle water would splash up through the floor.
Broke down many, many times!

These days are gone and with Health & Safety, broken seats and windows, dodgy emergency exits and seatbeats for everyone is checked
Costs have gone up

The reason it was easily setup in the first place was Bus Éireann were modernizing and the State had fleets of old yellow buses available and ready for use.
Nowadays private operators are charging contract prices

Cookie_Monster

Farm out all the layed up DB to Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford etc.

Farm out all the single deckers they replace to school buses. Modern, cheaply had fleet which will help in cutting costs. Means 200 odd DB don't end up rotting in a shed somewhere too.

By no means a complete solution but should help cut out some of the private company costs

foggy_lad

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Farm out all the layed up DB to Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford etc.

Farm out all the single deckers they replace to school buses. Modern, cheaply had fleet which will help in cutting costs. Means 200 odd DB don't end up rotting in a shed somewhere too.

By no means a complete solution but should help cut out some of the private company costs

It would cost too much to put seat belts in them!

Cookie_Monster

foggy_lad wrote: »

It would cost too much to put seat belts in them!

oh yeah, forgot about that BS

ardmacha

This is the direct cost of bad and corrupt planning in this country.

This thread and others on this forum depress me.
An aggregate figure is produced which shows some sort of increase in expenditure and someone posts a reason which accords with their own prejudices and everyone piles in with thanks.

An increase in school transport costs could be because of a variety of things, including things like

• more houses (probably least important reason)
• more children
• school amalgamation
• people staying at second level longer (and second level journeys are often much longer than first level ones).
• people travelling to more distant schools because the local one isn't good enough for them
• increased safety standards, not 3 to a seat etc.
• comparing running costs where capital costs were accounted elsewhere with contract arrangements where the contractor attends to equipment costs.

Without a proper breakdown of these factors, no useful assessment can be made of the performance of this or any other service. People here have enough interest to post, they should be demanding proper analysis, for only with proper analysis can there be proper management.

Now none of this changes the need to reduce the total expenditure. But there has to some assessment of whether the expenditure is presently reasonable or not. For instance, there is a common trend to amalgamate schools and hospitals etc, for very good reasons. But this creates a transport cost, and then when the transport cost appears to increase it is later cut, without reference to the savings from the amalgamation that created that cost. There is also an unwillingness to pay taxes to support these services, people might well be more accepting of expenditure increase if it results from greater safety provision or just more children, rather than an increase resulting from plain inefficiency.

n97 mini

I have no problem at all with a school bus scheme.

The Minister is not looking for people to cover the total cost. He's only asking the people who benefit to contribute to the costs. I agree with him.