Parents of children attending schools outside their local catchment area yesterday began to receive letters from school authorities telling them their children cannot be guaranteed seats on their school bus.
It is expected that parents of more than 5,500 students will receive letters from their local Vocational Education Committee in the coming days. This follows the Government's decision to eliminate the "three-for-two" seating on school buses.
Previously, about 7,500 students attending schools outside their local catchment area were classified as catchment boundary pupils, which meant they were allocated seats where available.
However, the majority of these will now lose those seats.
The National Congress of Catholic Schools' Parent Associations said the move may "drastically affect" the future education of these students. It had received reports of parents paying between €20 and €22 a week per child for private bus transport.
It said many of the parents who had enrolled their children in Catholic voluntary schools did not have the option of sending them to local schools with a Catholic ethos.
"The advice from the department is that children should transfer to a school in their catchment area, and that parents who exercise choice must undertake the responsibility that goes with that choice," the parents' congress said.
"These catchment boundaries were drawn up at a time when we had to wind up telephones to make contact . . . we are asking parents to write to [the Department of Education] to ask for a review of these boundaries."
Labour Party TD Breeda Moynihan Cronin said her party was calling on the Minister for Education Mary Hanafin to make extra school buses available next month to children who have had their bus service removed.
The Department of Education said yesterday it had no further comment to make on the matter.