School sports facilities threatened by land sale
On Monday next, Dublin city councillors will vote for the third time in a year on whether to sell the fee simple of the sports grounds of the Holy Faith secondary school in Clontarf, Dublin.
If this land is released for development, it will effectively block a community initiative to save it for sporting use. This is a school that has served a socially mixed hinterland for many years.
The sale is driven by a critical need to undertake major school refurbishments, and it is deemed necessary also by the order for the support of the ageing religious community. In doing so the land area will be reduced by 40% to 1.5 acres, sacrificing the major part of the school’s sports facilities.
Why, in a land of relative plenty, can an average secondary school still not afford to maintain its basic infrastructure or provide even modest sports facilities? Why do those who educated us in more difficult times have difficulty caring for themselves towards the end of their lives?
The commitment of scarce resources to education in the 1960s and 1970s is credited with underpinning our economic success.
The massive failure of government now adequately to support education will be seen as its greatest indictment when finally we have to face a bleaker future.
Is there any chance someone in power will descend and smell the coffee?
Orla Farrell
54 Blackheath Park
Clontarf
Dublin 3
