At a time of growing childhood obesity, these school children have been told they can't cycle to school.
Irish kids banned from cycling to their school
A school in Ireland has told pupils they cannot cycle to school for health and safety reasons.
A father rang the RTE Liveline programme on RTE Radio 1 to outline how his daughter, and her schoolmates in an unnamed secondary school, had been told they cannot cycle.
Marco Brody said he had encouraged his daughter to walk and cycle to school since she had been old enough to do so.
“At the age of about 10 she’d then go to school on her own (by bike) and I’d be travelling with her on another bike with my youngest daughter on the back of that bike taking her to crèche.”
However, Mr Brody said his eldest daughter came home from school one day “quite upset, saying she’s not allowed to cycle” to school.
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“I contacted the school and there seems to be a bit of a problem with parking facilities at school,” he said.
“But eventually after a number of discussions the school said they would waiver the instruction.
“But if any other children decided to come to school, and it got to the situation there was too many descending on the school (by bike), they would withdraw the facility.
“Now, this has gone on for about a year and a half. (During) the second week of this term she came home again and said she got told ‘I’m not allowed to cycle to school’.
“What the school say is that she can cycle to school, but she is not allowed to leave the bike in school.
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“They say it’s a health and safety issue. They say they haven’t got the space to manage that many bicycles.
“The words were; ‘if all the children tomorrow cycled to school, what would we do?’ I said ‘we should all look forward to that day, I presume and deal with it when it comes’.
“I appreciate in schools you have to forward plan but I think in this instance we’ve really done the wrong thing.
“I think we should be encouraging; and if the situation arises that we haven’t the facility to facilitate bicycles then we can deal with the issue.
“At the moment (the school) has 40 spaces for bikes which I’ve never seen at capacity. Yet you are not allowed to bring a bike to school.
“It’s so annoying to see all the racks empty; it’s just so frustrating. And it’s a shame the school won’t comment.”
It appears because the school would not go on air on the Liveline show to reply, the programme decided not to name it.
Mr Brody added a church beside the school had offered to allow his daughter park her bike there.
But he said other school principals in the area, as well as the Garda and his local TD, could not understand the cycling restriction the school had put in place.
The school told Liveline in a statement it did not have the space for bikes. And it was also concerned at the number of vehicles on the roads outside the school.
However, Mr Brody said that both the National Transport Authority and Minister for Transport Shane Ross TD had expressed concern at the low numbers of children cycling to school, especially at a time of growing childhood obesity.
He added the State was encouraging children to cycle to school and that funding was available from local authorities to help schools increase storage facilities for children cycling.
Mr Brody believed a small section of the playground at his daughter’s school had been taken so teachers could park their cars. Yet only last year the school had run a major static cycling campaign.
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