Ultra Greed; Ultra Virus

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Monday July 08, 2013 13:40 by Mattie Lennon - CIE WRITERS' GROUP

Greed of the Departnent

Lacken School and the story behind it.

ULTRA GREED; ULTRA VIRUS

A new 3 classroom school building was constructed for Lacken National School (Lacken, Blessington, Co. Wicklow) in 2010 using public funds. (RN: 10111o.) Ms. Coughlan, as Minister, agreed that the Department would accept the site in lieu of a local contribution. (Copy of her letter attached.)
Ownership of the site was transferred, in 2010, and all conditions were fulfilled.
Yet, the Department wrote to the Board of Management on 31 January 2013 setting out options available to the school authority. The options were to pay the local contribution of €63,000 or, alternatively, to transfer the ownership of the current school site and building to the Minister.
The site as agreed with Minister Coughlan referred to, “A plot of land set apart for building.”
Minister Coughlan’s agreement did not include the transfer of a building..
I have interviewed the person who was School Building Project Chairman at the time and he produced documentation which proves that, “ . . . the new school site was transferred, in lieu of the Parish Contribution of €63,000.” Ms. Coughlan, since she retired from politics, has informed me, in writing, that she accepted,
“ . . .along with the Department a site in lieu of the local contribution.” And she informed me Dick Roche was , “ . . . of the same view as I when we agreed the site in lieu of the local contribution.”
Members of the previous Government, whom I have contacted, without exception, agreed that the agreement made with the previous Minister should stand.

Since, in the words of Senator Averil Power, Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Education and Skills, “ . . .the Department must stand over any previous commitments ,“ How could the Department , in January 2013, demand a contribution which had been paid, in kind, in 2010?