Ennis NS 25/6/08

Statement by Declan Kelleher, INTO President, on Ennis National School

25th June 2008
 
INTO President speaking at meeting of parents in Ennis National School before parents take their children from school in protest against the conditions in the school.

It is the children in this school who are the victims of the failure of the Department of Education and Science to plan and fund the development of the school. Nine years ago the Department of Education and Science agreed that Ennis National School needed 24 permanent classrooms with proper ancillary accommodation.

Despite endless work on the side of the school Board, principal teacher, parents and staff to get proper permanent accommodation, nine years later Ennis National School now has 16 prefabs in the pupils’ playing areas. This can only be seen as a disgraceful failure to invest our resources in primary school children.  

The school’s patron and Board have provided all the necessary infrastructure for a new school building. A five acre site is available. The Board has expanded the school to thirty two classrooms.

Pupils, staff and parents are totally frustrated with the unacceptable accommodation situation in the school. After nine years waiting for the Department to keep its promises, breaking point has been reached

The presence of so many prefabs in the school grounds is a monument to the neglect of the school by the Department of Education and Science for the past fifteen years
I sympathise fully with the frustration of the parents and support their protest against the years of neglect suffered by their school. I call on the Minister for Education and Science to take immediate and decisive action in the provision of the planned new school.

Ends.