Call for Minister to act on Cloonakilla NS extension

The chairman of the board of management at Cloonakilla NS is urging Education Minister Ruairi Quinn to revisit a decision to exclude a major extension project at the Bealnamulla school from his Department's five-year building programme. As pupils and parents prepared for the start of the new school term this week, Fr John McManus said the need for new facilities to meet the demand for places at Cloonakilla NS was "the biggest issue" facing a school whose numbers were "increasing all the time." Eleven years ago, Cloonakilla was a four-teacher school with fewer than 90 pupils. Since then, the population of the surrounding Monksland area has grown massively and the number of pupils at the school has almost trebled. In light of the increasing pupil numbers, the Department of Education gave the green light in 2010 for the extension and refurbishment project to move to the planning and design stage. But Cloonakilla NS has since been dropped from the school building programme for the next five years. "Having been on the Department's (building) list originally, everyone at the school was very disappointed to find out that we were no longer on it," Fr McManus told the Westmeath Independent on Monday. "While the building may have stopped, Monksland/Bealnamulla is still a developing area with a lot of young families, and our numbers at the school are increasing all the time. "The new school facilities really are needed, and that's presumably why the school was on the list in the first place." He said approximately 240 pupils were enrolled at the school for the coming year. Despite the pressure growing numbers had placed on the school's facilities, he said it had not yet reached a stage where it had to turn new pupils away because of overcrowding. "There are a number of portacabins in place and, while they are of a better quality today than they were in years gone by, I would still regard them as a temporary solution," he said. "Some land by the school has been designated for the extension and the school has been able to use that for sport and recreation, so that has relieved the pressure somewhat. "There is a very committed teaching staff at the school and we had another full-time permanent teacher appointed over the summer. The pupils at the school still receive a first-class education." Earlier this year, representatives from the Cloonakilla NS board of management met officials from the Department of Education to discuss the need for the extension, and Fr McManus said the school's board feels very strongly that its exclusion from the school building programme must be revisited. "The school has a homely, rural feel to it and we would like to maintain that into the future, but in a new school with new facilities," he stated. Local TD Denis Naughten said the Cloonakilla NS development was urgently needed in light of Monksland's status as "probably the fastest growing area in the Midlands." He added that Monksland was the second largest urban area in county Roscommon, with a population just slightly smaller than that of Roscommon town.