A school besieged by setbacks

The recent cut to services at St Mary's has been described by angry parents as yet more evidence that the school is seen as “low hanging fruit” when it comes to cutbacks.

Despite providing an amazing service, it has waited for decades for its own purpose built premises and among the setbacks it faced was the threat last year of the removal of hot school dinners, which was fortunately resolved later in the year.

Cllr Tommy Reilly who wrote to Education Minister Norma Foley this week, said the wait for proper accommodation has been ridiculous.

“We have been campaigning more than 40 years for proper accommodation for the school and despite many promises, we are still waiting.

“I have written to the Minister For Educaiton this week looking for an update on when construction of the new school will begin.

“The current building is no longer capable of providing services to these children,” he told the Minister.

He pointed out that four years ago, four Ministers attended the school, including the then Minsiter for Education, Richard Bruton and promises were made the school would be built within two years.

St Mary's Special School started off in temporary accommodation in 1977 and has been accommodated in the former Johnstown National School since 2002.

“We got land rezoned for an education campus in Johnstown in 2003 and a new school for St Mary's was sanctioned 10 years ago as part of the Johnstown Education Campus,” Cllr Reilly recalled.

“But we are still waiting to see any progress.”

In March last year the Department of Education moved the project to tender stage along with the second phase of the Coláiste an Mí secondary school.

The new St Mary’s School will be a split-level two-storey school with a floor area of 3,772m2 with facilities to include classrooms, an art room, a woodwork room, a library, computer room and a home economics room with a daily living skills roomfull kitchen and dining facilities. Each classroom will have access to external classroom space, there will be an all-weather pitch area and an external play area.

Meanwhile, parents, staff and pupils were devastated last year by a decision which could have left children, some of whom travel very long distances to the school, without hot meals at lunchtime.

The Community Employment Scheme which provided the service to the school was being withdrawn on the instructions of the Department of Social Protection.

The issue was resolved when the Department of Social Protection said funding would be provided to buy in meals for the students.