At least one child is believed to have missed school due to public transport issues
Belfast Live has spoken to several parents who say that they have been having ongoing issues with their children being able to travel to and from the Irish language school, Coláiste Feirste — whose campus is located in West Belfast — on Translink bus services.
Problems being faced include missed communication around schedule changes and children being refused boarding the bus despite having a bus pass. Several complaints have reportedly been made by parents to Translink regarding these problems.
Coláiste Feirste is the only secondary-level Irish-medium school in Belfast, and several parents have informed Belfast Live that they had to campaign hard to get a bus service implemented. Now, parents have reported that they are having difficulties with their children being able to attend school due to the inefficiency of the service.
One source told Belfast Live: “Parents and the school had to fight hard to get this route out in the first place. This involved much lobbying and work to ensure children, who chose to be educated through the medium of Irish, availed of the same services as their English speaking peers. These latest incidents seem like a backward step.”
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Michael Cunningham, 49, from North Belfast said he was dropping his son off at the stop earlier in the week but they missed the bus as they had been uninformed that the bus timetable had changed. Several parents mentioned this to Belfast Live, with all of them we spoke to saying they had not been aware of the schedule changes.
He said: “On Monday, I went to drop my son off at the bus. We thought we were early but when we arrived, the bus was taking off. We drove behind him to catch up as he was driving down Antrim Road.
“Children were running behind the bus. It was really noticeable, there were some girls running and waving their arms. As we followed along, the same exact thing continued to happen. My son and I both remarked to each other that it was a weird situation.
“Having the bus is a life line, it saves you from traffic and getting there to work on time. It causes issues for parents when children aren’t allowed on or miss the bus because it leaves at a different time. If I had had to drive to school I would have been late for work.”
Ciara Quinn, 44, from Newton Abbey is another parent who has had issues with the bus service. Her 16-year-old son, who has a prepaid bus pass for the service undertakes a trade course at GaelChúrsai as part of his education and doesn’t wear his school uniform while there. Despite there being no mention of having to wear school uniform as a condition of carriage on bus services, the student has allegedly been subjected to a dress code when trying to board the bus.
Ciara said: “My son was questioned on the bus because he didn’t have a school uniform on. They asked him why he didn’t have a uniform on, he explained that he had GaelChúrsaí where he does a trade course which is part of his education.
“The driver let him on, but the next day, he refused to let my son on the bus. My husband spoke to the driver and then he had to drive my son to school. On Wednesday he had his uniform on and there was no problem, he was let on the bus.
“On Tuesday night my son was saying he didn’t want to get this school bus, I’ll just get two buses to school instead. And I said that isn’t plausible as you can just get one bus.”
Ciara added that a friend’s 11-year-old child missed school on Monday because the school bus left six minutes earlier than usual.
Belfast Live approached Translink for comment about several of the issues raised.
A spokesman said: “We safely transport over 60,000 pupils to and from school every day.
“Following stakeholder feedback, minor adjustments were made to some school timetables to improve punctuality. These changes took effect on Monday, November 24.
“While updated information was available on the Translink Journey planner app, we regret the delay in notifying relevant schools and apologise to those pupils impacted. We have taken steps to prevent this from happening again.
“Pupil passes are valid regardless of wearing a uniform. Drivers may seek clarification on a destination if it is unclear the student is travelling to or from school. We investigate all queries from parents and ensure we respond to them directly”
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