IN his various political portfolios, Labour’s Ruairí Quinn has heard it all before. Political colleagues and lobby groups, they all come knocking on his Cabinet door, pleading their case. For some he turns a sympathetic ear, for others it’s simply a case of falling on a deaf one.

 

But there’s no substitute for first-hand knowledge because at the end of the day, seeing is believing. What the Education Minister saw during his whistle-stop tour of Clare on Friday served to concentrate the mind and underline how shambolic the education system he has inherited is.

 

Meelick National School, an eight-teacher school with 150 pupils on the roll book, is more like a throw-back to a forgotten era where schooling took place in the most basic of conditions.

The list of structural defects is frightening, both with the main school building and the prefabs. Buckets and basins are frequently used to gather the rainwater that leaks through the roof and runs along the electrical fittings, presenting a serious health and safety issue.

Door and window frames are swollen and don’t close properly, creating drafts and other associated problems during the winter months. A permanent damp odour permeates the classrooms and mould is visible on the walls, all compounding problems for children with any form of respiratory-related illnesses.

When the pupils do venture out onto the schoolyard, they are normally met with an overpowering stench, that of raw sewage because the school’s sewerage system is completely inadequate and malfunctioning.

Local public representatives Michael McNamara and Pat Breen have described conditions at Meelick National School as “appalling” and “the worst in the county”. It’s not scaremongering or sensationalising the situation. The conditions in this day and age are wholly unacceptable.

If the building was a restaurant it would be condemned and the Health and Safety Authority would move swiftly to close the place down. Perhaps double standards are being applied. In its present condition, a genuine case could be made to close Meelick National School on health and safety grounds.

When pressed on the unacceptable conditions of the school, Minister Quinn boxed clever. His response was that he had requested a report from a departmental official and he wouldn’t be making any promises until he viewed its contents. However, one hopes that when this report does come to hand, it will be acted upon and not consigned to a cardboard box to gather dust.

A few miles up the road, staff at St Finnachta’s National School in Sixmilebridge are experiencing problems of a different nature, that of chronic overcrowding.

Fury was the overriding emotion earlier in the year when Minister Quinn disclosed details of the Government’s new school building programme for the next five years.

Under the previous government, St Finnachta’s National School had been earmarked for a major upgrade and extension. However, under Minister Quinn’s watch, the Sixmilebridge project disappeared off the radar.

Due to massive demographic growth, Sixmilebridge, with 422 pupils and 22 teachers, has one of the highest enrolment figures of all national schools in the county. Projected increases in school numbers over the next few years will serve to exacerbate the problems.

However, what Sixmilebridge also has is the unwelcome distinction of accommodating more students in prefabs than the main school building. In fact, at this stage the prefabs, which have already cost the public coffers over €500,000 in rental fees, are two-storey and rising.

Minister Quinn made Sixmilebridge his first port of call on Friday. The visit was arranged in response to local anger at the relegation of the school from the building programme.

School staff were afforded the time to argue their case and while Minister Quinn may have been sympathetic to their cause, he was none too committal as to future developments. He did concede that a new school is needed. However, he attached the rider that he could make no promises, even if extra funding is secured from the EU.

There’s no denying that previous governments stand indicted of poor planning and lacking in vision and foresight. They are guilty of failure, in times of affluence, to sanction major investment in school accommodation facilities.

Sadly, the recession and the tightening of the public purse have Minister Quinn in a straight jacket. Ennis experienced its share of false dawns before the sod was finally turned on its new €6.66 million project at Ashline.

Promoters of the new school had to endure trying times. No doubt, the people of Meelick and Sixmilebridge can expect something similar.

_{No sexism in Shannon}

WITH a review of Local Government in the offing, Environment Minister Phil Hogan is trying to gauge the mood on the ground by circulating local authority members with a questionnaire.

However, eyebrows were raised at this week’s meeting of Shannon Town Council, when one of the questions queried if steps need to be taken to encourage more women to stand as candidates in local authority elections.

Well, Minister Hogan got both barrels as the mere suggestion of sexism had members bristling with indignation. Indeed, the reaction from those of different political persuasion was one of unity; to enter politics is a matter of choice.

The line from the meeting was that there is no legislative bar prohibiting women from contesting elections and that, as such, they should be treated as equals.

Interestingly, Clare doesn’t have a female TD and Patricia McCarthy is the sole female sitting on Clare County Council. Maybe that gender imbalance might be addressed at the next elections.