PARENTS WHOSE children attend a primary school where pupils have been based in “temporary prefabs” for more than a decade took to the streets of Cork over the weekend to highlight the need for a new facility.
The parents association and teachers of Gaelscoil an Ghort Alainn in Mayfield on the north side of the Cork city say pupils have to endure damp and cramped conditions.
Marie Lee, whose son is a pupil at the school, said a campaign for a new facility has been under way for “18 long years” and that children could no longer be expected to sit in run-down prefabs.
“The children at the moment are being educated in prefabs. There is mould down the wall of the prefabs. We are just not putting up with it any more.”
Spokesman for the parents’ association John McLoughlin said he was delighted with the turnout for Saturday’s rally, with hundreds of people gathering to march through the city centre.
The 15-teacher, 292-pupil school has been based in temporary prefabs on the grounds of Brian Dillon’s GAA club next to the Tank Field for more than a decade. Management at the school hope to build a new school on the Tank Field site, which is used for recreational purposes. The Department of Education recently lodged a fresh planning application for a school at the site in Mayfield.
Members of the Montenotte Park Residents’ Association and Murmount Residents’ Association are opposed to plans to build a new school on the Tank Field, saying it is a valuable green area and local amenity. The residents associations held their own counter-rally in the Tank Field in Cork over the weekend.
In 2005 Cork city councillors decided to sell at an agreed price, and subject to planning, a 2.3 acre portion of the 11-acre Tank Field site to the Department of Education, which had sought planning permission for a new building for the Gaelscoil.
Councillors voted 15-13 in late 2007 to rezone a portion of the site to allow the school project to proceed but because a two-thirds majority was needed, the rezoning did not go ahead. In April 2008 An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission for the school.
In September 2009 it emerged that if the project went ahead, power lines would cross over one of the proposed new playing pitches. Then city manager Joe Gavin confirmed a new planning permission would be needed. The department has been working on a new application since 2009.