Minister for Education and Science’s declaration that the Department plan to complete school building projects from purchase to occupation inside a year means that either they have been wasting years and finance on previous projects or it is an aspirational spin by a minister who has a building programme which is out of her control according to Fine Gael’s Cllr Richard Daly.
“The announcement of this swift-build by the department was announced on the same day that the Minister visited Kildare, a county where primary school children attend school in prefabs on a second level school carpark because the same department and Minister could not read the projected population figures submitted five years earlier.”said Cllr Daly
“In the same county Taoiseach Bertie Ahern spoke to those assembled at the tree planting ceremony for Athy Community College in November 2000 and told them of how speedily this fast tracked project would be completed.
There are numerous school building projects sitting of the departments list for years with parents and management afraid to become aggressive in case they penalise the project.
Throughout Kildare South numerous parents, teachers, school managers complained of the lack of school accommodation in the lead up to the General Election.
Promising a new speed in the building programme further degrades those who have been waiting for years who obviously were not important enough to merit such attention from the minister.
I have personal experience of the school which I work in being sanctioned in the last century and is now only going through so I would love to know if it is all due to inefficiency in the past or is the Minister expecting a supersize Lego building kit for Christmas.
Yes, we need new schools and have needed them for years. We also need a minister and a government capable of delivering them so appropriately in Kildare the message to Minister Hanafin is “Don’t forget your shovel……”.
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