Fianna Fáil local election candidate for Galway City East Alan Cheevers has called on the Department of Education to urgently look at funding for a new school for Scoil Chaitriona in Renmore.
“It is not acceptable 800 junior and senior children are expected to work in the conditions they are now. In a time when class sizes are increasing, it is not acceptable they have to use prefabs, some of which are in very poor condition,” he said.
Cheevers said the current building had inadequate heating systems and was totally energy inefficient compared to modern standards. He said the school had to spend hundreds of thousands of euro on the upkeep of a building that was continuing to deteriorate each year, and that “it is such a shame that school does not have a building to match the exceptional reputation it has for providing a quality education service to the local community.”
The chairpersons and principals of Scoil Chaitriona junior and senior will be holding a public meeting on Tuesday May 13 in the Clayton Hotel Ballybrit at 7.30pm to raise awareness and support for a new school building. All parents, past pupils, local residents, friends, and interested members of the public are asked to attend the open meeting.
Cheevers concluded by saying: “I am urging parents, residents, and past pupils to attend this meeting. The meeting will serve as an information forum to elicit support as well as formalising a steering committee so that the project can move forward. This school is too important a resource to the Renmore community to be ignored any longer.”
