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Thousands celebrated culture and creativity at Cruinniú na Cásca in Swords Castle as part of Creative Ireland Programme. Pictured having a ball is Emilia Boland from Skerries.
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25th April 2017 • Volume 24, Issue 14 • Leader House, North Street, Swords, Co. Dublin. K67 P5W4. • Tel: 01 8•400•200 • info@northcountyleader.ie • www.northcountyleader.ie
School Capacity Crisis In Swords A total of about 25 children will be unable to attend their local school, Holy Family Junior National School, River Valley, Swords, come September.
By Patrick Finnegan They are being turned away by an over-capacity problem at the school. The only option families have is to have their children schooled at St Colmcille’s school, close to Swords village. However, this causes another problem, as there are only four places available, all for boys and none for girls, as this school has separate schools for boys and girls. All in all the entire waiting list for children at the school amounts to 75, with 25 affected this year. Local Sinn Fein TD, Louise O’Reilly met with some parents from River Valley, whose children will be unable to attend their local school in September. Speaking to the County Leader, she said, “Parents are understandably very distressed and it appears that the Department of Education are not taking this issue seriously. They seem to be of the opinion that this problem will solve itself, but this is not the case,” she said. Arising from this, I will speak to the other TDs in this area. This is not a party political issue and hopefully, we can all sit down together and try and see if we can get Minister Richard Bruton to come up with a short term solution,
Pictured at their meeting with local Sinn Fein TD, Louise O'Reilly in Swords are parents from River Valley, Swords whose children cannot secure places at the local school, Holy Family JNS. Included are Dave Hedderman, Ashley Gill, Stephanie Davis, with her children Lauryn and Zach Davis, Orlaith Tormey and Louise O'Reilly TD
even though long term, he needs to take a close look at the census figures and the fact that we need at least one new school for this area. In the short term, we are looking at prefab accommodation as a very temporary solution to a major problem.” “One of the main problems here is perception. When the Minister looks at a map, he sees a short distance and wonders what the problem is. What he needs to do to fully grasp the
problem, is to try to drive from Holy Family school in River Valley to St Colmcille’s School on a wet Monday morning amid horrendous traffic and then see first hand the problem facing parents, who are also trying to get to work on time. This is more than young families can bear,” said O’Reilly. “I have an email from a woman who said that if she can’t get her child into the school, she will have to consider giving up work, as it’s not
going to be feasible to do both. The Minister has the information and the figures, he and he needs to publish that immediately and we need to keep the pressure on him,” she said. Concerned parent, Stephanie Davis told the County Leader, “I already have a child attending Holy Family school in 1st class. My daughter Lauryn was born on 11th November 2012 and unfortunately she missed the cut-off by a few days. I’m not in the position to be in two places at once. If Lauryn can’t get into Holy Family this year, I will have to see if she can get in next year, as I’m not willing to send her to another school in Swords,” she said. I suspected that there may be a problem with Lauryn getting into Holy Family school, so I booked her for another year in the playschool she was attending. But all this achieves is to deprive another family of a place in the playschool, on top of costing more money, which we haven’t budgeted for, We desperately need to solve this problem, as there are new homes being built in Ridgewood and Boroimhe, making this area massive,” she said. Another parent, Ashley Gill, whose daughter Sadie is also on the waiting list said that the school principal and the Board of Management applied for a seventh class, where fundraisers were planned, but this did not materialise. The school needs to provide for the community and the patron of the school, the Archbishop of Dublin and the principal, who represents the school need to do something, but we don’t see anything happening,” he said. The Archdiocese confirmed just a few days ago that there are 75 children who do not have a space anywhere, so we started out with 107 and 32 children haven taken up spaces elsewhere. Various Ministers’ excuse down through the years, through previous governments has been that there are other places in Swords if you cannot get your first school of choice. This is no longer the case. It’s redundant and he’s hiding behind a wall of silence. If he went public with these figures, we’d be proven right,” he said.
Massive Undertaking By Skerries Men
Stephen Sherwin, John Kieran and Peter Carroll training for their challenge in Skerries.
A group of Skerries business owners are planning a trip across the Irish Sea, but not in the conventional way. They intend to make the crossing standing up on paddle boards, in an effort to raise funds for the local RNLI in Skerries. The group, consisting of four men, Killian Walsh, John Kieran, Stephen Sherwin and Peter Carroll got the idea of this adventurous journey from Peter’s uncle, Liam McMahon who was the first man to windsurf the exact same route in 1984. They will be using stand up paddle boards to cross from Skerries to Holyhead in August. This 100 km journey will be under-
By Shauna Carson taken after months of training through the harsh winter conditions. Speaking to the County Leader, Peter, who is currently studying politics and history said, “Training has been as much about fitness as it was about learning how the tides move and how winds can affect the conditions, both positively and negatively. We also want to take this opportunity to show our support for the work of the RNLI. My business is based on the water, running summer camps with children and teaching water safety is a key element to this. These people are
always there when a mistake is made on the water and they can be the difference between life and death,” he said. “Educating people and making smarter choices on and around water is something we are in full support of, if people are more aware of the dangers less mistakes can be made.” Having received the support of English Stand Up Paddle board company, Starboard and receiving new kits for their trip, all that’s left is the last few weeks of preparation before they journey across the pond to hopefully make their own piece of history.