Mayo Fianna Fáil TD Dara Calleary has stated that the Government only plans to invest in two schools across Co Mayo over the next five years.
Deputy Calleary was commenting after the Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn published details of the School Building Programme.
“While I very much welcome that the Government has committed to building a new special school on Pavilion Road in Castlebar in 2015/2016, this will be the only new school to go to construction in this county over the next five years. The only other school in Mayo to benefit from this much-hyped five-year building programme is Our Lady’s School in Belmullet – a refurbishment project which has been in the pipeline for some time.
“It is disappointing that so many areas experiencing population growth in Mayo have been ruled out for any schools investment over the next five years. When you consider this alongside the attack on small rural schools, there are real concerns about an unbalanced approach from this Government when it comes to the education budget. Not only has Mayo been largely overlooked for new school projects over the next five years, dozens of small primary schools across the county are set to lose teaching posts in September and face a real threat of forced amalgamation.”
