End of line for empty school

FOR the past seven weeks school principal Denis O’Sullivan turned up in his classroom from Monday to Friday anxious to pass on to children some of the knowledge accumulated over a long career in education.

The only problem was when he reached the school building there were no pupils in sight.

The bizarre situation had arisen at Scoil Mhuire National School in Clonkeen, Co Kerry, where no pupils had enrolled for the current academic year.

Although the Department of Education was aware of the situation in advance, it did not close the school and Mr O’Sullivan was not put, as expected, on a panel of teachers for transfer.

But yesterday, after journalists raised the issue with department officials and the parish priest that runs the school, an immediate plan of action was put into place.

Last night, the department confirmed it had received notification from Bishop of Kerry Bill Murphy, patron of Scoil Mhuire, that he has decided to close the school with immediate effect.

A department official said Mr O’Sullivan would be redeployed to a neighbouring school following completion of administrative work associated with the closure.

The spokesperson didn’t say why the department had allowed a school with no pupils to remain open for so long or what the future holds for the building.

Due to population trends and planning restrictions in the area, pupil numbers at the rural school, 19km from Killarney, had dwindled in recent years.

Twelve were on the roll book in 2009, dropping to three last year. When the last pupils moved onto secondary school in September, the classrooms at Scoil Mhuire fell eerily silent.

One of the two teachers on the payroll was reassigned to a school in Killarney in September but until yesterday, the principal remained.

The chairman of the school’s board of management, Fr Bill Radley, said earlier yesterday that the department was notified of the situation well in advance of the required deadline and the matter was again flagged in follow-up phone calls and in a letter to civil servants.