Sir, - I am asking for support from the parents of the nation in our attempt to preserve our Gaelscoil in Cobh, Co Cork. We are looking for much needed government funding for a new school building at a site designated by Cobh UDC. This Gaelscoil has been in existence since the early 1980s and the current leased building is cramped and overcrowded, with 1950s sanitary facilities. The backdrop is not the Blasket Islands of that era but a thriving Cork heritage town with a bulging population.
All we want is our basic and divine right of educating our children in the native language, a language which regretfully I cannot speak myself. Unbelievably, there is talk recently of integrating us with a local national school. In this liberal modern Ireland riding on the tail of the so-called Celtic Tiger, is it too much to ask that the individual rights of our children are safeguarded?
My eldest child asked me last night: "Please Dad, can we not get a new school with a playground. Who makes things happen?" This letter is on behalf of her and the 120-plus children in the Gaelscoil community.
Can the Minister please explain to a nine-year-old that she can't have her simple wish of choice. Surely in a booming economy with large surpluses, our Government can find capital funds to finance a new Gaelscoil for our future generations. - Yours, etc.,
Rushbrooke, Cobh, Co Cork.