A 15-year-old schoolboy was killed, and 34 other children injured in a bus crash in Co Offaly this morning.
A Garda spokesman said a schoolbus crashed off the Rahan road and overturned, around two kilometres from the village of Clara, shortly before 9am.
The boy was named locally this evening as Michael White of Main Street, Clara.
The scene has been sealed off, and an investigation has begun into the cause of the crash.
The bus, a 17-year-old Mercedes 34-seater, went off the road in an area known as the Bog Road; no other vehicles were involved. The boy who died was trapped under the vehicle. Efforts to revive him at the scene failed.
The bus was privately operated and was bringing secondary pupils to Killina Presentation Secondary School.
Fourteen of the injured were seriously hurt - with broken limbs, cuts and abrasions - while 20 are less seriously hurt but suffering from shock.
Twenty children have been brought to hospital in Mullingar, while the 14 more seriously hurt are in hospital in Tullamore.
None of the children's injuries are thought to be life-threatening.
A major emergency plan was put into action, and ambulance crews from Portlaoise, Athlone and Tullamore attended the crash. The area has been sealed off by gardaí.
Five schoolgirls were killed on May 23rd, 2005, when the bus they were taking home from school skidded at the site of road works on the Navan to Kentstown road in Co Meath.
So far this year 103 people have died on the State's roads.