A concerned parent has voiced her displeasure with the imminent relocation of a bus collection point for Athlone Community College, Marist College and Our Lady’s Bower students which is due to become operational on Monday, November 6.
Students from the three secondary schools will now use a new collection point at the Athlone Town Stadium in Lissywollen, as confirmed by Bus Éireann in recent times.
Speaking to the Athlone Advertiser, Margaret Grier, a mother of three students who attend Athlone Community College, expressed numerous concerns pertaining to the issue, stating that she had contacted Bus Éireann seeking further clarification on their decision to relocate the bus collection point.
Noting that it was Bus Éireann’s intention to operate the service from its new location at 4.15pm, Ms Grier stated that her children finish school at 3.15pm and with an hour wait prior to departing, this would allow for mass unsupervised congregation of students for a particular period of time.
“Bus Éireann’s proposal is that the children from all three schools congregate in Athlone stadium car park for an hour, with no adult supervision or oversight, on dark winter evenings until all buses leave at 4.15pm. The location is busy just after school finishes, but the atmosphere is much different an hour later, when all adults are out of sight and darkness is setting in. That car park is in a lonely, isolated location with no houses or businesses overlooking it. Given this, I wholeheartedly believe it to be an unsafe pick-up point at that time of evening.
“How many students will be walking along the 700 metre path from the schools and then congregating unsupervised at the stadium car park? I am very concerned about the opportunity for bullying, fighting and possibly much worse, as there will be zero adult supervision. There will be no adults walking or observing the children on that route as it is completely different to walking along a footpath on a busy public road where there is regular activity.
“There are 167 secondary school days per year. This arrangement will put my children in an unsafe, unsupervised environment 167 additional times over what they experience right now. That is a frighteningly large number,” Ms Grier asserted.
The concerned queried if any alternative solutions have been proposed by Bus Éireann in this instance.
“As a responsible parent, I have never left my children unattended and unsupervised in a car park for up to an hour. How can Bus Eireann get away with forcing me to do this now?
“I think any person involved in making the decision or publicly supporting it, should walk from the various schools with a bag on their back on a cold, dark, wet November evening to the stadium car park and wait in the location for a period of time. Imagine what it is like to stand there with a bunch of boisterous teenagers and not another adult in sight. Don’t tell me there won’t be immediate issues with bullying, harassment, and anti-social behaviour.
“I know this particular route to the Athlone Stadium and as a woman I have felt very uncomfortable on several occasions in the presence of some of the men I have encountered on it. Bus Éireann should be seeking input from real users of the route and they should seek out the children’s perspective on it - after all the children are the users of their service.
“As a parent of children (both male and female ) I feel very anxious about the times that any child will miss the bus and be left at that stadium with potentially a depleted phone battery or no credit. What scenario shall unfold then?
“My daughter has on occasion stayed after school study and it would suit me greatly to pick her up at Athlone Stadium and avoid the traffic congestion, but she is of the view that the route is inherently unsafe. She has witnessed open drug dealing and ominous characters loitering on the path from the Gaelscoil. I have warned my daughter that under no circumstances should she walk that path at dusk as it is too risky. I simply cannot believe Bus Éireann is proposing for children to take this unsupervised, inadequately lit route on dark winter evenings and expect them to loiter around the closed stadium entrance for up to an hour unsupervised,” Ms Grier added.
Ms Grier believes that the bus collection location change is not keeping in line Bus Éireann’s statement that “safety is a key priority and we continually work towards ensuring the risk to pupils is minimized”.
“That is simply empty rhetoric and a very frustrating sentence to read. In my mind, the relocation to a new bus collection point is increasing the risk to my children’s safety.
“This change will ultimately result in less children using the bus service as it is putting them in an unsafe environment for an extended period of time. I cannot believe that Bus Éireann are allowed to singlehandedly implement this change. They should not be allowed to refer to it as a ‘school transport arrangement’ if the bus doesn’t even pick up students close to the school. There must be better alternatives than what is proposed,” Ms Grier concluded.
