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Parents in Dublin are struggling with unreliable and inadequate bus services for their children's school commutes, leading to significant morning delays and frustration. While some families are resorting to cycling or private cars, the lack of a robust, timely public transport system is exacerbating the daily grind for many parents in the capital.
The biggest challenge now is the buses not showing," says Elaine Conry.
"My girls get the bus, and it is just dreadfully unreliable; some days they've had to get a taxi into school. "Her family is among thousands in Dublin who have spent the past fortnight taking to the roads and rails around the capital again - and it seems her grind of the daily commute has returned with a vengeance. Beauty queens, corporate titans and Michael Flatley gather for Trump's meandering address"We don't have a proper bus system," she says.
"We have a growing population, and we have no infrastructure. Everybody is in their cars.
"We're going to work and leaving them off, hoping the bus will show up. But it's just really unreliable. We've contacted local councillors and the bus operators - and it's always the same thing you get back - drivers are ringing in sick, etc - it's just really not good enough.
" Conry says when her children were attending primary school in Kilternan, 5km south of Sandyford Village, it was a similarly difficult morning run. Building work meant it had become an hour-long round trip, she says. As they have transitioned to secondary school in Foxrock, the problems are of a different nature.
"We're trying to drop them into school for 7.20 before we go to work - they're bringing their coffees and breakfasts and stuff - it's not ideal". Aisling Judge is a mother of three young children who lives in Ballinteer, also close to the M50 ring road around Dublin. She too is deeply frustrated by the performance of the local bus services.
"Up to now, all three of our kids were in primary school, and we could walk to school; you'd barely need a car living in Ballinteer," she says. "But now, with the oldest in secondary school, he has to get the bus, and there's really no simple option of how to get there on the bus. It's not straightforward.
" Aisling Judge, a mother of three young children from Ballinteer in south Dublin whose family juggles poor local bus services in getting her children to school. Photograph Nick Bradshaw / The Irish Times With her son travelling from the family home in Ballinteer to his new school 6km away near Stillorgan, the past fortnight has involved a difficult learning curve. His main bus service is also operated by Go Ahead Ireland under contract from the National Transport Authority (NTA).
"On the first day, the bus was 15 minutes late; the second day it was full and went past; the third day it was cancelled, and on the fourth day it was early, and he missed it," says Judge. "The other bus - the 116 - seems purely to exist to bring children to schools - but it leaves the terminus too late - and gets them in late - what is the point?
"said the service used by Aisling's son had operated just over 96 per cent of its scheduled kilometres in September. The company said the recent return of schools had "increased traffic volumes across the road network, resulting in additional congestion and impacting the punctuality of some services". It said it had recorded three reports of buses on the route being full before 8am.
Dublin Bus said it couldn't comment on the 116 service's timing as that was designed by the NTA. Herself a schoolteacher in Milltown, south Dublin, Judge chooses to cycle to work - a trip that would take much longer by car. She is hopeful that her son will soon also be able to take the bike.
"I'd say before the end of first year he'll have started to cycle - and I reckon he'll never go back to the bus when he sees how easy it is," she says. Aisling Judge chooses to cycle to beat the traffic from her home in Ballinteer to her job as a schoolteacher in Milltown, south Dublin.
Photograph Nick Bradshaw / The Irish TimesA recent survey by Ireland Thinks revealed that 54 per cent of parents said their children didn't cycle to school as the journey was simply too far.
"People think that in Dublin everything is just down the road - but it just isn't," says Fine Gael TD for Dublin Rathdown Maeve O'Connell. "When people in Dublin hear about rural bus schemes they ask why don't we have that here," she says. "For many kids it's not possible to walk or cycle to school.
""Apart from the commuter traffic - it puts pressure on some parents who have to consider whether both going to work and managing the school runs is possible for them," she says. O'Connell points to the likes of Ottawa in Canada as being a similarly sized city to Dublin that has a schoolbus service. Belfast and London also offer dedicated bus services to students.
Traffic in and around Dublin has been increasing for several years and shows little sign of abating. The total amount of traffic on the main ring road, the M50, has been edging up year-on-year since 2021. A cursory look at the most recent figures available through Transport Infrastructure Ireland's online database shows many increases again at the significant junctions
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