Street protests over new Ennis school

MORE THAN 1,000 people took to the streets of Ennis, Co Clare, yesterday in protest at the failure of the Department of Education to fund a new school building for Ennis national school.

With more than half the children on the march withdrawn by their parents from school, chairwoman of the parents’ council, Claire Connolly said: “This sends out a very strong message that we absolutely have to have a new school . . . We can’t be fobbed off anymore.”

The Department of Education recognised the need for a new school building nine years ago and the Diocese of Killaloe has provided a site at no cost to the taxpayer.

Chairman of the school’s board of management, David Casey, said: “We’re putting down a marker. We are not going away . . . it is up to the department to decide whether it is the short route or the long route.”

Sixteen prefabs are strewn across the school grounds, prompting Fine Gael TD Pat Breen to compare conditions to a concentration camp. School principal Gary Stack said the Government is allocating funds to the developing world where schools are in a better condition than Ennis national [school], where two classes are being held in corridors due to lack of space.

He said the school has been 10 years in the queue and the children who arrived eight years ago and are to leave this year “have been sentenced to an education in prefabs. It is very unfair ”.

He added: “It is time to say stop! Is Brian Cowen going to be a Taoiseach for Tullamore or Taoiseach for the country, and are the Ministers in Cabinet going to just look after their constituencies or for all the country?”

Bishop of Killaloe Dr Willie Walsh this week criticised the Government’s record on the issue, and INTO president Declan Kelleher told the protesters that “to place young children at the forefront of economic cutbacks is immoral and short-sighted.

“It is inexcusable that the Department of Education has failed once again to live up to their basic levels of responsibility,” Mr Kelleher said. He added that the lack of planning that has resulted in no new school for Ennis National “doesn’t happen by accident – it happens as a result of choices that our Government makes when it fails to prioritise primary school buildings as an essential infrastructure for this state”.

In a statement the department said it “recognises the need for a new school in Ennis and it is intended to proceed with this as soon as financial circumstances permit . . . The Minister is currently in the process of reviewing the department’s spending plans with officials for this year.”