Cost of using primary schools for polling
Regarding the recent referendum and all other past and future vote casting, can someone explain to me why hundreds of these polling stations are in schools?
On my way through West Cork on the day of the referendum, I counted eight schools that were closed for the day and were being used as polling stations, these schools probably had an average staff of more than 25 people, this is a wage bill of approximately €3,500 per school.
I can only presume that the rest of Ireland is the same, so you could very conservatively multiply that €3,500 by 600 schools countrywide which gives a wage bill of €2m, not to mention all the parents that have to pay for a babysitter to mind their kids or else take the day off themselves.
Why can’t the polling station be in the church or the town hall/parish hall beside the school?
These buildings may be lying idle, why not use them so that the teachers wouldn’t have to take a fully paid day off?
