No furniture grant for Educate Together

08 October 2003: A furniture grant for the Educate Together School at Ballymakealy, Celbridge, will not be paid this year despite the application being cut from €140,000 to €50,000.

And minister for education Noel Dempsey TD says he cannot give a commitment that the grant will even be put into the 2004 allocations.

The failure to provide the grant means that several areas of the school, including the General Purpose Room, Special Needs Resource Rooms and the Library/Computer room remain without basic facilities.

The minister said that the budgetary provisions only allowed his department to set aside a total of €1.2 million for buying furniture for primary schools this year.

The new school, which has 255 pupils and opened this year, cost €3.5 million.

Story by
Brian Byrne

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