One day before the return of students to school, the Education Authority (EA) released a statement informing the people of Fermanagh and Tyrone of bus routes that will not operate from Wednesday, September 1.

The routes in question include rural areas of Fermanagh, including Newtownbutler, Derrylin and Derrygonnelly, as well as Fivemiletown in Co. Tyrone, and are the only places in Northern Ireland affected.

The routes that will not operate affect several primary school and post-primary schools, including those in Enniskillen.

Newtownbutler has two routes that are not operating, which served Newtownbutler Primary School, St. Mary’s Primary School, St. Ronan’s Primary School, Lisnaskea, Bunscoil an Traonaigh, St. Kevin’s College, St, Mary’s Primary School, Maguiresbridge and Maguiresbridge Primary School.

The service from Derrylin serving St. Ninnidh’s, Derrylin, St. Nailes, Kinawley and St. Aidan’s High School will also not operate. Similarly affected is the Derrygonnelly route serving St. Patrick’s Primary School, Killyhommon Primary School and Enniskillen post-primary schools.

The final two routes were from Tempo and Fivemiletown.

The Tempo route served St. Mary’s Primary School and Tempo Primary School, along with post-primary schools in Enniskillen.

St. Mary’s Primary School, Fivemiletown; St. Mary’s Primary School, Brookeborough; Brookeborough Primary School and St. Kevin’s College are all affected by the cancellation of the Fivemiletown route.

In a statement released at 10pm on Tuesday, August 31, the EA said: “The EA has been busy over the summer period getting ready to transport around 86,000 pupils and further education students to school and college each day.

“Unfortunately, a number of routes in the Fermanagh and Fivemiletown area will not be running on September 1 due to driver shortages as a result of disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.

“EA has worked extremely hard to deliver essential services, such as transport, throughout the Covid pandemic.

‘Challenges’

“However, like many essential services, we continue to experience challenges. We make every effort to prevent services being affected; however, issues can arise at extremely short notice, and it may not always be possible to put in place alternative transport arrangements.

“Where this is the case, we do our best to communicate any disruption and would apologise for any inconvenience.

“We greatly appreciate the continued support of schools, parents, our staff and transport operators during this time and will continue to do all that we can to deliver this essential service.”

One source who spoke to this paper has said that driver shortages were coming down the line and the pandemic has exacerbated the situation.

“Covid is just the tip of this,” they said. “This problem was always coming with the lack of drivers and lack of forward thinking on how to sustain this.

“The transport department and the management have let the people of Fermanagh down.”

The source also believes there will be more routes that will have to cease operating over the coming months as shortages continue.

When asked to provide a number of how many drivers were unavailable, and when the routes will begin operating again, the EA said: “More than 2,750 school transport services operate each day but, unfortunately, a small number in the Fermanagh and Fivemiletown did not run on September 1 due to driver shortages and disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.

“We have been working hard to ensure these routes can return to normal service as soon as possible, and are communicating with the schools affected who can, in turn, share this information with parents.”