Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On repeated occasions I have raised with this Government and the one previous to this, the fury of parents, the school community and local residents at the decision of the Christian Brothers to sell off the school playing fields of Clonkeen College in Dún Laoghaire. The Government has failed to intervene and the Christian Brothers are continuing to push through with that decision to sell off to private property developers the school playing fields.

In the past week the parents were absolutely shocked to get a letter from the Christian Brothers, from the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, saying that it was not reappointing a board of management to the school but was going to have one manager and no board. This is despite the fact that the parents and teachers have put forward representatives who could have formed a board. The trust is empowered to do this under a statutory instrument brought in in 1998 by the former Minister for Education, Michael Woods, which means that the school simply has to notify the Government - I would like to know if it has done so - that they cannot supposedly find suitable people for the board. This is retaliation by the Christian Brothers against the parents, teachers and school community because they oppose what the Christian Brothers are doing. Will the Taoiseach intervene and prevent them from doing this because this has wide implications for other schools?

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