Community ‘suspicious’ of pre-election promise to rebuild school

Minister for Education Richard Bruton has rejected claims that Fine Gael Minister Leo Varadkar and former tánaiste Joan Burton played politics before the general election over a school in their Dublin West constituency.

A public meeting was being held last night on St Mochta’s school in Clonsilla, about which pre-election pledges had been made to completely rebuild the school and double its size, starting in 2016.

AAA-PBP TD Ruth Coppinger said her two constituency colleagues had announced last November 17th that construction would go ahead.

This was five days, Ms Coppinger said, after she had been told in the Dáil that the school was was not in the then current five-year plan.

Since then the community “has been let down”, she said.

Ms Coppinger asked how in five days the school had gone from not being on the list to being on the list when “the school board and local population subsequently heard that the school was not on the list at all”.

There was “outright cynicism” about the issue and “the suspicion in the community is that because of the pressure exerted in electioneering the St Mochta’s national school project” it was included in the project list.

Ms Coppinger said the accommodation was “dark, damp and mouldy, and completely unsuitable”. She asked why more money could not be allocated.

Ms Burton said however “I make no apologies for lobbying continually and constantly, as did other deputies and public representatives in the area”.