Councillors unite against VEC amalgamation

CLARE County Councillors have united to oppose plans to amalgamate Clare Vocational Educational Committee with North Tipperary VEC.
Eight members of Clare VEC signed an emergency motion requesting Education Minister Mary Coughlan not to proceed with the proposed amalgamation, which was passed at a council meeting on Monday.
It was signed by Pat McMahon, Pat Burke, Tony Mulcahy, Cathal Crowe, Michael Hillery, Tommy Brennan, Michael Begley and Gabriel Keating.
The McCarthy Report recommended that the number of vocational educational committees should be reduced from 33 to 22 and it is now proposed that this figure should be cut to just 16.
Proposing the motion, Councillor Keating noted the changes will not have any affect on the constituents of Minister Coughlan in Donegal and the previous education minister Batt O’Keeffe in Cork, yet Clare had to accept joining up with its counterpart in North Tipperary.
“Clare has lost is Department of Agriculture office in Ennis and it will lose some of its Teagasc offices. Ennis hospital has been downgraded, our letters are sorted in Cork and our milk goes down to Kerry. The Government is closing down our garda stations and our post offices in rural Ireland while the Clare boundary is now in danger.
“Shannon Airport is no longer the hub it once was for European and transatlantic destinations. City and county enterprise boards were recently allocated €4.3 million for job creation but nothing came to Clare,” he noted.