Ministers were given frequent seat-belt warnings

Ministers for Transport and Education were warned of the danger of children travelling on buses without seat-belts a number of times since 1999, the most recent warning being three weeks ago.

President of the National Parents' Council (NPC) Eleanor Petrie warned of what she described as a major tragedy due to the absence of seat-belts on secondary school buses when she addressed the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science.

Ms Petrie and the NPC have now called for parents to boycott the school bus service from September if a directive requiring seat-belts has not been applied.

Ms Petrie has also called for the immediate abolition of the three-for-two rule regarding children. This allows three children to sit in a seat designed for two, and thus 60 children could be transported on a bus licensed for 40 without the operator being accused of overcrowding.

Both the seat-belt exemption and three-for-two issue have been raised repeatedly by opposition politicians and the NPC as far as the early 1990s.

In 1999 former Fine Gael transport spokesman Denis Naughten and the Green Party's Trevor Sargent co-wrote a report for the Oireachtas Committee on Transport calling for the mandatory installation of seat-belts on safety grounds, an additional responsible adult on board and the elimination of the three-for-two rule.

Although the Department of Education and Science and Bus Éireann were in the early stages of negotiations on a phased withdrawal of the overcrowding exemption in relation to children, the exemption is still in force.

The department and Bus Éireann also had discussions on the issue of seat-belt exemptions.

The situation has prompted the National Parents' Council to demand that the Government insist that seat-belts be fitted to all school buses from next September and that the three-for-two exemption be abolished immediately.

The Department of Transport acknowledged the situation yesterday and said it would "carefully examine the findings of the current investigations in relation to the safety of school transport in particular. Current policy would see the phasing out of the exemption of the three-for-two rule in a number of years in any event," a spokeswoman added.

Ms Petrie said: "The idea that children's lives were not to be subject to the same protection as adults is horrendous. If tourists were met with the buses our children are met with, they wouldn't come back. All of those who have children who use the service should inspect their bus in September and if there are no seat-belts, then boycott the service".

The Fine Gael spokeswoman on transport Olivia Mitchell also said parents should no longer tolerate a "lax approach to road safety which is officially sanctioned by the State".

The school transport network used buses considered too old to serve the public routes any longer.