Published: Wednesday, 27th January, 2010 5:15pm

Action urged on Rosemount population fall

A public meeting has been called to discuss the declining population of Rosemount, amid concern over the effect the dwindling number of local residents could have on aspects of the community such as its school and GAA club.

The meeting - which will take place in Rosemount's Community Centre at 8pm on Saturday, February 13 - is being facilitated by the local priest, Fr Tony Gavin.

"I've only been based here for 16 or 17 months, but you can see that this is an ageing community," Fr Gavin told the Westmeath Independent this week.

"Rosemount is a lovely community. One parishioner described it to me as 'a little bit of Heaven' and I would concur with that. There are about 200 families living in the area and there are no social problems here."

However, Fr Gavin, the chairman of Rosemount National School's Board of Management, stated that last summer it went from being a five-teacher school to a four-teacher school.

"We have a fantastic, state-of-the-art school here but only two new children were enrolled last September and 18 pupils will be leaving at the end of this school year. The junior classes are much smaller than the older classes.

"An extension was put on the school during the good times and it would be a shame to have it become simply a monument to the generosity of people in the area."

He stated that there was "huge unemployment" in Rosemount and that this was largely due to the scarcity of construction jobs.

"In recent years Rosemount would have been synonymous with the construction industry. Nearly every family in the area was involved in construction," he commented.

Fr Gavin said next month's meeting was designed to discuss the possible response from the community to the decline in population locally.

"We'll discuss the possibility of making some sites available here for people to build and settle in Rosemount, and this could have the effect of creating local employment also. Rosemount is an area where no development took place even during the good times."

However he wished to point out that the meeting was "purely to facilitate people" and that he was not, personally, "pushing any agenda."

"The meeting will be a way of testing the water. Some people might not be interested. There are people who don't want anything to change and who like the community just as it is," he said.

One of those involved with the local GAA club, Jimmy Keane, said that there was "a great GAA tradition" in Rosemount but that something will need to be done to ensure this tradition is kept alive in the years to come.

"We haven't seen a huge decline in numbers (at the club) but we're alert enough to notice that the numbers have dropped," he said.

"We need to attract more people into the community and this meeting is a chance to discuss what we can do to encourage more people to base themselves here."

Mr Keane added that the possible creation of new employment in the area was also likely to be discussed at the meeting on February 13.