Thumbs down for evening bus services to Ballyroan

THE operator of the TownLink bus service - Slieve Bloom Coaches - is unable, at present, to extend additional buses to travel to Ballyroan in the evenings.

Following a motion earlier this year by cllr John Joe Fennelly requesting additional buses on the route in the evenings, the bus operator, in a letter to Portlaoise councillors at their October Municipal District meeting said: “From a business point of view we are constantly looking at different timetables to see could we enhance the service across the county and provide passengers with different times to travel.

“On this service (Ballyroan) the driver starts at 6.50am and finishes his shift at 7pm. To avail of a later service we would have to push out the departure time from Portlaoise, which in turn would leave a later finish time for him, making his working time illegal as for the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) rules.

“If we were to replace the drivers and run the service later it would mean an added cost for us as we would have extra bills to cover such as diesel and driver costs. Furthermore we’d have to approach the National Transport Authority (NTA) and amend our route license at an added cost to our company, and it could be refused.

“As a business we couldn’t sustain the added costs unless we were given aid towards funding the extra costs. There is a shortage of drivers and we wouldn’t be in a position to extend the services until such times of drivers being available and got funding to cover the cost.” 

The company said that it figures show that from Monday 2 September there has been 93 passengers travelling on the 5.10pm Ballyroan bus. Of the total amount of passengers 13 travelled to Ballyroan.

Concluding its letter to councillors, the company said: “People of Ballyroan could support the service better.” 

In reply to the letter cllr Fennelly said: “There is a requirement there for the service. I hate when people say there’s only so many people using the service. If the service is provided more people would use it, especially when people finish work in Portlaoise in the evenings at 6pm. There should be a service there for them.”