A delegation from Scoil Mhuire, Moycullen travelled to Leinster House last week to meet the Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan to deliver a petition for permission and funding to replace the school’s ageing, outdated prefabs with new classrooms.
The delegation consisted of Joe Howley, Chairman of the Board of Management of Scoil Mhuire, Patrick Byrne, Parents Nominee Board of Management and Terry Kavanagh, Principal of Scoil Mhuire.
In attendance at the meeting were local TDs Sean Kyne, who arranged the meeting with the Minister and Derek Nolan, both of whom have spoken to the Minister on the school’s behalf in support of its appeal for extension and renovation.
The school’s petition consisted of over 4,500 signatures, collected by the parents and children of the school. The school has been in dire need of an extension and renovation for many years, with fully two fifths of its 380 pupils being educated in cramped, damp, musty, prefabs that are entirely unfit for purpose and which take up much of the school’s yard space, posing a health and safety risk due to chronic overcrowding.
Scoil Mhuire is the main national school in Moycullen with 380 children enrolled. This school was built in the late 1970s with nine main classrooms to accommodate 225 children.
Today it now has 380 children enrolled and have had to use seven dilapidated prefab classrooms.
These prefabs now take up much of the children’s yard space making play time for the hundreds of children extremely cramped and dangerous.
The school has launched a campaign to garner as much support as possible for our petition to the Minister of Education and skills Ms Jan O’Sullivan to be allowed to extend the school to cater for the basic needs of our current and future children.
