As you know, a lot of traffic comes to both schools at certain times during the day. The mornings and afternoons are the busiest times of the day: between the two schools and the Community Centre over 1,200 children and over 100 staff members arrive. Most of these come between 8.20am and 9.00am. This places a great deal of pressure on the car park and traffic flow is quite restricted at these times especially. When it rains, the situation becomes more congested.
Up to now, both schools have been supervising the arrival of cars at the roundabout each morning and each afternoon. We have been doing this in the interests of safety, and fortunately there have been no serious incidents.
However, recent developments, including one a couple of weeks ago near another school in the Dublin 15 area in which a child was seriously injured on the way to school, have led us to seek advice on the management of traffic on our campus.
Our insurance companies and brokers have advised us that while we do have a role to play in the management of traffic on the school grounds, we should no longer supervise the traffic at the roundabout. Our policies do not cover us outside the school gates.
We anticipate that there will be some delays to traffic as a result of this. However, we hope that with everyone’s co-operation, those who need to have access will be able to get into the car park. Car park spaces will be reserved for staff members and will not be accessible to the general public at peak times during the day.