Several school buses deemed unsafe amid failed safety tests

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) chief executive Moyagh Murdock has said there is no room for complacency when bus operators inspect and maintain their vehicles.

The comments comes following frightening figures showing that nearly 40 per cent of the 1,171 roadside inspections carried out on buses between July 2018 and June 2019 failed a roadworthiness test.

Some of the 456 buses included those used for school transport, although an exact number is not available.

The figures were provided by the RSA to Fianna Fáil education spokesperson Thomas Byrne, who said the school transport fleet should be the safest in the country, but it was “clear from the overall figures that the quality remained a serious issue given that many of the buses inspected by the RSA operated in the school transport fleet”.

Ms Murdock added that the RSA is working closely with Gardaí to improve bus operator compliance and they would be making use of new powers for inspectors to detain and seize dangerously defective vehicles.