Cash-strapped primary schools ‘face closure’

SCHOOL management bodies yesterday warned the Government that dozens of primary schools face closure because of the State’s failure to adequately fund education.

A total of 46 Catholic primary schools alone are in serious debt and only surviving with the financial support of their local diocese, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

One primary school in Dublin had amassed debts of almost €78,000 which had to be carried by the diocese because of the inability of parents and the local parish to raise such funds, it emerged.