This article is from page 14 of the 2006-09-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
THE town of Ennis was described as an “educational black-spot” yesterday by a school principal as it emerged that up to 25 children are without a school in the town due to lack of space.
Making the charge, school principal of the Ennis Educate Together school, Sean Ó Comfhaola revealed that in the past week he has had to turn away between 20 and 25 children searching for a school in the Ennis area.
“This is an emergency situation. They are mostly foreign children and are not just junior infants, but kids looking for school places in first, second and third class. A few of the children have been back to us a second time after not finding a place elsewhere in Ennis,” he said.
Mr Ó Comfhaola said, “One of the toughest things I have ever had to do as principal was in the past week where a young Brazilian girl and her mother came looking for a place for the girl.
“The mother had no English, so it was up to the daughter to ask for a place in first or second class and I had to say ‘no, sorry we’re completely full’. She said that she had been around to every school and getting no place. I couldn’t tell the mother where to go, there is nowhere where they can register and as a result, we don’t know what has become of these people.
“The parents from eastern Europe come from a system that is quite organised and they can’t understand why there wouldn’t be schooling for their children,” he said.
Commenting on the situation, Fine Gael TD, Pat Breen said, “Everyone has a right to be educated and to be facilitated with a proper education, so it saddens me to hear that there are children going without one.”