Chaotic scenes as Fermanagh school children left on the side of the road without a bus service as Ulsterbus schools’ contract is not brought forward to cover August reopening

Drivers express concerns that they have been instructed to refuse fare-paying passengers on bus routes from next Tuesday

Stormont Executive must commit to return of suspended bus services and end cuts agenda which is impacting bus provision across Fermanagh and Tyrone

Cross-community Labour councillor Donal O’Cofaigh expressed his disgust at the fact that children in Fermanagh were left without any way to get to school on their first day back.

“Children who were meant to have a first day at school today were left on the side of the road after the bus they were expecting simply didn’t show. I contacted several bus drivers to find out the story and they confirmed that services weren’t operating as the Ulsterbus schools contract only starts at the beginning of September and hadn’t been brought forward. In other areas of Northern Ireland, I understand school children were charged to go to school on operating Ulsterbus services.

“This is a totally shambolic situation – children’s education and safety have been impacted. Let’s call out what happened here – Ministers in the Stormont Executive thought that children being left without any form of transport to school, on a timetable for reopening that they themselves set, was a price worth paying in order to cut public transport budgets.”

NI Executive blasted for failure to put in place adequate infection controls ahead of schools' reopening

Peter Weir, Stormont Education Minister

Education workers have the right, indeed the responsibility, to stand to protect themselves and the wider public health from serious and imminent risk

Donal O'Cofaigh, Cross Community Labour councillor for Enniskillen encouraged workers to stand ready to demand and secure basic infection control regimes should schools reopen next week without adequate protections in place.

"As the recent exams fiasco demonstrates, it is vitally important for our young people that we see the reopening of schools but it is also vital that this occurs safely with adequate infection controls to protect children, their families and the staff working in schools and in public transportation. The total inadequacy of the infection controls put in place to date in schools by the Northern Ireland Executive has been highlighted by a recent statement of all four unions representing education support staff, NIPSA, Unison, GMB and Unite.

"Just like in any other workplace, workers in schools and on the buses at risk of 'serious and imminent' risk have legal protections in withdrawing themselves to a safe distance, raise their concerns with management and return only when the situation has been remedied.

"The responsibility for this looming crisis lies wholly at the feet of the Northern Ireland Executive who have completely failed to put in place basic infection control measures but if next week when pupils begin to return or indeed after that if workers feel that they are putting themselves at serious and imminent risk then it is their legal right, indeed responsibility, to protect themselves and the wider public health. 

"The continued absence of perspex screens from Education Authority vehicles is a cause of grave concern to many drivers, as is the unwillingness to put in place adequate cleansing regimes. Drivers have highlighted the fact to me that the social bubble model being applied within schools is unlikely to survive contact with reality on buses. There are genuine risks to drivers in this rural area - many of whom tend to be older and have higher incidences of underlying conditions risking more serious impacts should they be infected.