Coach dilemma for pupils and parents of Rathcoole school

Pupils at a Rathcoole school are set to lose their school bus service as they move into new temporary accommodation.

Rathcoole Educate Together National School has been located at a temporary site in Citywest since it first opened four years ago.

The Department of Education are to build a 20-classroom building to accommodate the school on the Coolamber Road, but this will not be ready until sometime next year.

The school will now relocate to a temporary site in Newcastle for the 2025/26 school year, but parents have been informed that a private coach service, operating in place of an official school bus service to the Citywest site, will not carry over.

A parent who spoke to The Echo described the “frustrating” situation that has now arisen, as there is no provision of any bus service to the temporary Newcastle site.

She said parents had been informed of the decision to withdraw the private coach service in March.

This had been arranged by the Department of Education, as the temporary Citywest site was too far from Rathcoole to fall within the criteria for an official school bus route organised by Bus Éireann.

“We’ve been happily getting the coach for the last four years,” the parent explained.

“Now it’s moving to Newcastle, the assumption was made that the coach would also then go to Newcastle.”

Parents were told to go to the official Bus Éireann school bus portal and register there using the location of the temporary Newcastle site, but were told they were ineligible, as Citywest Educate Together was in fact their closest school.

To be eligible for Bus Éireann school transport, primary schools have to be “no less than 3.2 km walking distance from the home address” and pupils must “meet the condition of attending the closest school to the home address”.

“The eligibility test on our system shows that your selected school Rathcoole Educate Together is 4.748km from your home address to the school. The closest school to your home address is Citywest Educate Together National School at 4.683km in distance,” an email sent to the parent said.

“Since both schools’ kilometres are close in figures, the only other option I would suggest for you, is to contact the Department of Education to see if there is something they can do for you,” the email, which signed ‘School Transport’ concluded.

When the parent reached out to the Department of Education, she was redirected to the Bus Eireann portal, which closed in April.

The email from the Department of Education, dated June 4, stated that “Bus Éireann has advised that at present there is no mainstream service operating” to the temporary Newcastle site, and that “Bus Éireann is responsible for the planning and timetabling of school transport routes”.

In response to a parliamentary question raised by Sinn Féin TD Mark Ward, Minister for Education Helen McEntee said that the coach transport had been provided for the school “by the Planning and Building Unit”.

“This is a private arrangement and is not within the remit of my Department’s School Transport Scheme. The site in Citywest is outside the SPA and this is the reason transport was provided”.

She said her department has “advised the school and patron body that the private bus transport arrangement will not be provided to the Newcastle site”, and included the same “copy and paste answer” that Bus Éireann “is responsible for the planning and timetabling of school transport routes”.

The ideal outcome for parents is that the Department of Education continues to fund the coach service to the new location.

“Just because the school has moved, I do not understand why they’re cutting it,” the parent said.

“It’s going to kill the school,” she said.

“People are trying to get into other schools in the area, and they’re full, which is why we needed the school, which is why the Department gave us the school.”

Taking her child out of the school isn’t an option, as she “never thought they would go to settle in school.”

“They love it, they’re happy, I can’t move them. I’m going to have to figure out how to get him to the school next year, it’s going the opposite direction from where I work.

“I don’t know how I’m going to manage it.”