A concerned parent in the Boho area has hit out at the state of Fermanagh roads after her children were unable to get to school this week.

Kathleen Johnston has two children who attend Killyhommon Primary School. On Monday, the extreme frosty conditions on the roads in the area, caused the school bus carrying six children to turn back.

"The driver had to go to a neighbouring house and call the parents of the children on the bus to ask them to come and collect them as he could not get them to school.

"Then yesterday (Tuesday), when I dropped the children off at the bus, I watched and waited to see the bus trying to get up the hill. It was extremely scary to see as the bus just went out of control. The driver, through his skill, managed to bring the vehicle to a stop, but even then it was slanted across the road and would have been a danger to any cars coming in the opposite direction. He also did well to manage to avoid hitting cars which were parked nearby.

"It was not nice either for the children on the bus, or watching it as a parent."

The bus was not able to continue to school, and as a result Mrs Johnston had to take her children back home again. She also offered to look after another child as their parents were tied up at work. Mrs Johnston is 'disgusted' with the service provided by Roads Service to this area: "There is a complete lack of support for people in this area. I have lived here all my life and things have not improved over that period of time, even though there are more and more people living in the area.

"We are not that rural. And this is having a huge effect on people here, both on the children who are losing out on education, and their parents who often lose earnings when they have to leave work early.

"It is also worrying if you have elderly family in the area and you don't know if you will be able to get out to see them or not," Mrs Johnston continued.

"I just don't know what we pay taxes for if this is the service we are getting."

Responding to the complaint, a spokesperson for the Department of Regional Development said: "The nearest parts of the salted network to the Boho and Tullycalter areas are the A46 on the Lough shore and the B81, linking the A4 via Monea and Derrygonnelly to the A46.

"The various side roads to the west of the B81 do not carry sufficient traffic to warrant inclusion in the main salting schedule. This is despite the fact that when assessing traffic counts for Winter Service purposes, school buses are given enhanced weighting by counting their seating capacity as though they were vehicles. It is not physically possible to salt all roads and, unfortunately this part of the network is unlikely to compete on a priority basis in the foreseeable future.

"However, when staff are assured that the main network is secure, they then respond to as many requests for additional salting as they can. Again, not all roads can be covered, but this morning the route from Belcoo through Boho at Acres Cross and then to the B81 was treated as part of this secondary service."

The Western Education and Library Board confirmed two school buses were unable to make it to Killyhommon Primary School this week.