Teacher training centre ‘still in planning stages’

A TRAINING centre for 3,000 teachers in the country’s Gaeltacht and all-Irish schools is still in the planning stages seven years after it was first announced.

Former Fine Gael TD and Mayor of County Cork Michael Creed claimed that Education Minister Mary Hanafin is trying to have the centre - proposed for Ballyvourney in the mid-Cork Gaeltacht - moved to her constituency.

Michael Woods turned the sod on the proposed e1.9 million education centre on the site of the former second level school at Coláiste Iosagáin in Ballyvourney, Co Cork, in June, 2000, seven months after it was announced by his predecessor as Education Minister, Micheál Martin.