School wardens to record increase in levels of abuse

Lollipop men and women, or school wardens as they are more correctly known, have been issued with incident report forms to record increasing levels of abuse from motorists in Dublin.

Dublin Corporation's road safety unit will compile the data and present it to the Garda at the end of the year, with a view to prosecuting repeat offenders.

Mr Michael Byrne, road safety development officer, said the new measure had been introduced because abusive incidents had increased dramatically before the summer break.

"Things got really bad. We had a large number of very aggressive incidents coming in every week," he said. "We didn't get the warm weather but people certainly seemed to heat up."

Mr Byrne said the incidents included the use of foul language and offensive gestures towards school wardens.

Some school wardens informed Mr Byrne that motorists refused to stop when requested to, while and others had driven towards them in an aggressive manner.

Repeat offenders included some parents, of the children in the wardens' care, who insisted on parking their cars close to schools and refusing to move.

Mr Byrne said wardens played an important role in accident prevention among school children and should be treated with greater respect. He said the new incident report forms would help to improve the situation.

"Until now, there has been no formal reporting mechanism. Now we'll have documentary evidence to present to garda∅," he said.