MORE than £100,000 worth of catering equipment has been in storage for more than three years while students at a regional technical college eat in what they claim is a sub standard canteen.
Mr Michael Noonan, acting director of Cork RTC, one of the State's largest regional technical colleges, said £500,000 worth of catering equipment was bought 3 1/2 years ago but was put into storage when it could not be immediately installed. Most of it now in use in the RTC's catering's courses and about a fifth of the equipment was still in storage. This would be used in a new catering college for which plans were being drawn up and which should be operating after 1999.
Work on upgrading the student canteen will begin in the next few days but will not be completed until next year. About £1.5 million had already been spent preparing two areas which were being used as a canteen. "We had hoped to complete the work for about £200,000 but it will in fact cost more than close to £300,000 we expect now," he said.
The money comes from the college's capital allowance and, with many other demands for funds, the authorities could not pay for the complete work in one year, so they planned to carry out the refurbishment in two phases.
The students union president in the Cork RTC, Mr Mattie O'Callaghan, said they had been promised a proper canteen for the next term. He believed students would not be prepared to accept that promises made to them had been broken once again.
He was critical of what he described as poor planning by the college authorities in spending £500,000 on catering equipment that lay in store houses for most of the past three years.
"This is a dreadful waste of money given that the money was spent on something that was not needed and that no doubt cost the college additional funds to keep in storage," he said. The plans for a separate catering college have been part of the general development plan for ages while it has been blatantly obvious the canteen has been a serious problem."