Fine Gael councillor Jarlath Munnelly, who is also chairman of the Mayo Vocational Educational Committee, has called for the expansion of the role of the VEC in providing education in the county, rather than the closure of VECs around the country as proposed by the McCarthy report. Munnelly believes that VECs would be the perfect umbrella group for education provision in the county with other groups coming in underneath it.
“A lot of people don’t realise how involved the VEC is in providing education in the county, it ranges from not only primary and post primary education, but to things like youth reach projects, back to education schemes, PLC courses which are often the first step back into education for people who have fallen through the cracks,” he told the Mayo Advertiser this week.
“I would like to see the role of the VEC expanded to be the one to take in all the other groups under it and provide services locally rather than being directed from the Department in Dublin or Athlone. If you look at the record of the VEC in Mayo they have been very smart in the way they have spent their money over the last number of years on capital projects. The VEC for example have no prefabs in the schools they run, while if you look at some of the short sighted schemes that have come from the Department, there are a lot of schools that have prefabs for a number of years rather than properly built new facilities.”
Munnelly acknowledges that money has to be saved in these times and streamlining has to be achieved, but he believes that this can be done on a local level if the VECs are given more powers and controls to deliver local projects and initiatives locally.
Earlier in the week the Impact trade union which represents a number of the VEC staff across the country stepped up their campaign to keep the VECs intact. Assistant general secretary for the union Matt Staunton called on people to speak and write to their local representatives to ensure the services they provide are not lost to cutbacks. “The target saving is €3 million, but the ‘collateral’ damage will be far in excess of that amount when you consider the effect on communities, service users and staff,” Mr Staunton said. “There will be an inevitable loss of revenue to local banks, and a broad range of small and medium local enterprises, such as catering, printing, and construction. Towns, villages, and communities will feel the effects, and job losses in these sectors are inevitable.”
