No windows as children go to school in warehouse

CHILDREN being taught in a warehouse with no windows and no playground are getting used to broken promises.

Gaelscoil Charman in Wexford, which has 200 pupils on its rolls, was promised a new building in the run-up to the last general election. Principal Aine Uí Ghionáin and parents at the all-Irish primary school, were told by then Education Minister Michael Woods that a new school building would be delivered this year.

Instead the school now operates out of a warehouse in Wexford Industrial Estate. The children have no playground and they are taught in makeshift classrooms with no windows and no natural light.

The distraught principal says they are losing faith in politicians.

“We are on a list, a probable list, of buildings due to begin in 2004/2005. But should there be a change of government, that whole scenario could change again and we could become a victim of the next minister.

“We are going to be still here. Ministers will come and go. We are at the whim of whatever minister is in power at the time. Michael Woods says he’s no longer the Minister for Education and is no longer responsible for what happens now. But he is in the same party as Noel Dempsey. I just really feel it’s a cop-out to say ‘I’m not the minister anymore and I’m not responsible’.”

Local Fianna Fáil politician Tony Dempsey is in favour of Mr Dempsey’s list approach, as it stops leapfrogging and lets schools know where they stand. “I approve of Noel Dempsey’s approach. It’s not political, it won’t win political friends and it won’t win votes.

“It doesn’t suit me in ways. I could be going around saying ‘we’re getting this school and that’. But I would prefer not to be giving news unless it can be fulfilled.”

Government politicians wooed voters by promising new buildings for schools which have struggled in inadequate accommodation for years, Labour’s Brendan Howlin said.

His comments came as internal Department of Education correspondence revealed that officials were directed to prepare ‘good news’ letters for schools awaiting new buildings in the run-up to the last election. One of those schools was a gaelscoil in Mr Howlin’s Wexford constituency.

But a Government campaign has reiterated its claim it did not hoodwink the public.

“The Freedom of Information Act is now showing us that, at the very time the Minister for Finance (Charlie McCreevy) was stating there were no cutbacks, real or imagined, and no cutbacks planned, that others were preparing the cutbacks and wanted to get themselves over the election.

“There was a spending splurge up to May of last year and, as soon as that was over, the promises evaporated and it was as if we had entered a new planet. Suddenly the economic situation was entirely different. It was not as if these people meandered into the Department of Finance. These were the people in charge for the previous five years. That’s the reality.”

He said he did not want to re-fight the last election, but said: “Commitments were made to decent people. They now deserve a decent answer from the people who got their votes, those who purported to be in a position to deliver.

“They campaigned, they were elected and others were defeated on the basis of falsehood. Unless we have accountability and people stand up and say we shouldn’t have done that, then it ultimately makes people cynical about politics and democracy.”