A judge described as "bloodchilling" evidence that a school bus, whose brakes had failed, was 20 years old.
Judge Mary Devins made her comments after being told at Belmullet District Court, Co Mayo, yesterday the ageing vehicle had collided with the rear of another school bus. The vehicles contained a total of 90 young passengers.
"What I have heard is bloodchilling particularly in view of what happened in Slane two days ago," Judge Devins said. "Many, many children could have been killed in this accident." After the collision, on September 25th last, McNulty Coaches Ltd, of Chapel Street, Belmullet, were summoned for use of a defective vehicle.
Supt Tony McNamara said a CIE bus had pulled in to pick up students when the brakes of the other school bus failed and hit the rear of the CIE vehicle. Both buses were taken to Ballina for inspection and the brakes on the coach were found to be defective.
Mr Michael Bohan, solicitor for McNulty Coaches Ltd, said nobody had been injured and there were no claims resulting from the accident.
Questioned by Judge Devins, Ms Anna McNulty, a director of McNulty Coaches Ltd, said a lot of buses used on school runs were 20 years old. Judge Devins said that was appalling. It appeared that children were expendable.
Ms McNulty agreed if a party of rich Americans were visiting the area they would have been transported in a newer vehicle. Ms McNulty said there was another vehicle in their fleet which was 19 years old which was also being used for school runs.
Adjourning the case to March 14th, Judge Devins said she wanted a detailed report from a reputable garage that the vehicle was road-worthy or proof that it had been scrapped.