Teachers and parents call for transparency in school funding

TEACHERS and parents have called for an end to the lack of transparency over school building projects following controversial comments by a TD who said he would not support a school’s campaign because he did not get enough votes in the area.

The Department of Education has sanctioned a 12-classroom building for Scoil Bhríde in Rathcormac, Co Cork, but the site it bought for the project three years ago is still lying empty while almost 230 pupils face into another year in 10 prefabs, again from September.

Last week, Fianna Fáil TD for Cork East Ned O’Keeffe said the school had “a fabulous layout of Portakabins” and that many other schools needed funding first. He said he had asked a parents’ representative why he should look after the people of Rathcormac if they didn’t look after him.

The project is waiting more than a year to go to the next stage, which would allow the school seek planning permission and be ready to proceed once funding becomes available.

“It’s going to take at least three months for planning to come through, that’s a long time in a school year. This was a top-priority project according to former minister Noel Dempsey in 2004,” said principal Margaret Howard.

“Children and teachers have a right to adequate education facilities and it shouldn’t be a political thing,” she said.

Claire O’Flynn, chair of Scoil Bhríde parents’ association, said families are concerned that schools in Dublin are getting priority.

“It’s not fair that nothing is coming down towards us here in Cork, but this is just as much a rapidly developing area. What was once a small village is now a small town,” she said.

“It’s not right that our children should have to go in and put on a jacket in class during the winter to keep warm, while this thing remains a political football,” said Ms O’Flynn, who will have three children at the school from this autumn.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe’s spokesperson said that the Rathcormac school project has been given a band rating of 2.2 in the department’s building unit, in which top priority schools have a band one rating and the lowest priority is band four. The Department of Education will spend €614 million on school building projects this year, up from €580 million in 2008.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation said the case was proof that the building programme is seen by some politicians as a political slush fund, and it called on the minister to condemn Ned O’Keeffe’s comments.

“The public must be reassured of the integrity of the school building process and to do this, the minister must immediately publish full details of every school on the building list and where they stand in terms of priority,” he said.

It is understood that such a system – in place during Noel Dempsey’s tenure as education minister until 2004 and promised last November by Batt O’Keeffe – is to become available on the Department of Education website later this week.