A bus company owner has been fined €1,800 after a teacher and three children with special needs had to be taken home in a Garda patrol car because their schoolbus had so many defects.
Stephen McDaid appeared at Letterkenny District Court in Co Donegal charged with having a defective vehicle.
The court heard the minibus, which was licensed to Bus Éireann, had eight serious defects including badly worn tyres and no back-brakes when stopped.
The court heard Mr McDaid (45), of Stackarnagh, Churchill, ran a fleet of 13 vehicles.
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Gardaí stopped the Mercedes bus at Crieve, Letterkenny, on June 16th, when they noticed the driver was not wearing a seatbelt.
Sgt Vincent Muldoon said a Road Safety Authority inspector was called to examine the vehicle.
The inspector, who was in court, found the minibus had eight serious defects and the vehicle was impounded.
Sgt Muldoon said he was then forced to take three of the children, who had special needs, and their teacher in the patrol car and transport them to their homes.
Solicitor for the accused, Michael Shiel, said his client had pleaded guilty to the charge at an early stage.
The charge is contrary to section 54 (2) of the Road Traffic Act as amended by Section 46B (1) of the Road Safety Authority Commercial Vehicle Roadworthiness Act of 2012.
He stressed that his client was not driving the vehicle, and allowed some of his drivers to take their vehicles home at weekends.
The court also heard that the driver of the bus is also due before the court on charges connected to the same incident.
Mr Shiel accepted the Road Safety Authority had visited Mr McDaid’s company and found a number of issues with a number of vehicles in a follow-up inspection.
A subsequent inspection of Mr McDaid’s fleet found all vehicles were in order.
Mr Shiel said his client now had a nominated mechanic who inspects his buses on a weekly basis, as well as an overall eight-week inspection, and that all buses must now be returned to base on Fridays.
He added that his client was in the transport business for the past 12 years and had no previous convictions of any kind.
The court was told that the penalty for the charge was a fine up to €5,000 and up to three months in prison.
Passing sentence, Judge Daly said this was a business involved in the transport business and used to transport schoolchildren to and from various places and that was an aggravating factor.
She accepted that the accused had loan payments with a fleet of 13 vehicles and fined him a total of €1,800.
