CASTLEDERMOT 17 January 2003: A two-hour march up and down Castledermot this afternoon strongly registered the frustration of parents and teachers at St Diarmada's National School in Castledermot.
The march was the second such inside four months, and was organised 'to put pressure on the Department of Education to keep their promises'.
The Principal of St Diarmada's, Brendan Dunne (pictured above with local parents Patricia Keating and Ann Wall), told KNN that former minister for education Michael Woods TD in 2001 promised that 'if a site was available at a reasonable cost, it would be bought'.
"Sites are available, and the Board of Works has been in touch with landowners, but we are now hearing that the department might not be buying our site because of cutbacks," Mr Dunne says. "We simply can't have that. We are a town that's going to grow quickly, and our current school is already only a third of the size we should have for our existing pupil numbers."
There are currently 224 pupils and eight teachers, and the Department of Education has already told the school that it should be a 12-teacher one. In addition, there is a severe shortage of room for facilities which other schools take for granted.
There's no General Purpose room for PE or drama. There is also no room to have a Library and a Computer teaching facility. The Sports teacher works out of a dilapidated Portakabin.
And it's a case of deja vu going back over 20 years if the school doesn't get a new site and building, because in the 80s the then management applied for a grant for an extension and were turned down 'because of cutbacks'.
This time, they're determined not to be easily set aside. In today's protest, the garda managed traffic and safety for the marchers in a very efficient manner, using two patrol cars and a motorcycle garda.
