A LOCAL councillor has described the burning down of a special-needs school in Omagh as “mindless vandalism” that has created a “crisis in local education”.
Arvalee Special School was extensively damaged in the intense blaze on Friday night, which police are treating as suspicious. Firefighters used specialist equipment to bring the inferno under control, but not before it had destroyed three-quarters of the building.
The school caters for children aged three to 19 with moderate to severe learning disabilities. Its 103 pupils, who were due to start a new term today, will have to be accommodated elsewhere, possibly in Enniskillen, 27 miles away.
SDLP councillor Pat McDonnell said a sectarian motive was unlikely. “The school has a cross-community intake and a cross-community staff and is valued very highly by the whole community,” he said.
“This is just pure mindless vandalism and we are totally dumbfounded as to why anyone would do such a terrible thing.
“To attack such a vulnerable sector of society – on the weekend when children and their parents were preparing to return to school – is beyond belief. It will put great pressure on staff and the parents to come up with alternative arrangements.”
DUP councillor Errol Thompson, whose nephew attends the school, said valuable specialist equipment had been destroyed.
The North’s education minister John O’Dowd, who visited the school on Saturday, described what he saw as “utter devastation”.