Attempts to resolve the school bus dispute in Geashill, Co Offaly, have been hampered by the circulation of forms in Tullamore schools asking the pupils to name those involved in vandalism.
Since Monday last the school bus service, which carried over 70 pupils to and from schools in Tullamore, has been suspended by CIE because the company said it could not guarantee the safety of children travelling on the buses.
The company alleged that the children of Geashill had cut safety belts, damaged seats and broken the floor of the vehicle.
But at a meeting last Tuesday 28 parents rejected these claims and demanded that the service be restored immediately.
Mrs Teresa Direen was selected to speak for the parents. She said during the week that the company had misrepresented what had been going on. It was imperative, she said, that the service be restored immediately.
"The company said that it was withdrawing the service because it could not guarantee the safety of the children. What has happened since Monday is that children, young boys and girls, have had to hitch to and from school and in our opinion that places them at even greater risk," she said.
Mrs Direen, whose two daughters use the service, said the company's claim that the children had broken the floor of the bus was without foundation.
"There was an occasion when the company used a bus for a return journey from Tullamore and one of the pupils fell through a hole in the floor. The children had not used that bus before and they did not see that bus again," she said.
Allegations that the children had used knives to cut safety belts were also untrue, she said, because there were no safety belts in the bus being used.
"This has led to a situation where our children are now being abused by other children in the Tullamore colleges. They are accusing our children of carrying knives and this is simply not true."
Asked if she was aware of any bad behaviour on the bus run, Mrs Direen said, "There are a small minority of children who used the service who are rowdy and silly, but their behaviour did not merit removing the service."
She said moves by the parents and the schools to have the service reinstated had received a setback when Geashill pupils had been asked to name the vandals on the forms they were given.
"This is a legal minefield and it has created all kinds of problems. We already know that some of the children have filled in the forms and named totally innocent children as a joke or because they thought it was not a serious matter."
These forms, she said, had no legal standing and had created difficulties between pupils, who were accusing one another of informing.
She said that tomorrow the parents will be meeting the teachers, who are seeking a resolution to the problem because some of the children are facing examinations.
"Our best hope is that this could be resolved by next week. We cannot have our children exposed to the risks involved in hitching lifts to school, which many of them have to do because their parents work or cannot bring them," she said.