News
Parents’ shock as pupils miss out on new school
An estimated 20 children have been refused a place in the new secondary school in Claregalway with capacity full before it even opens its doors on a new permanent facility.
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir (CBC) opened in 2013 on a temporary site in the Claregalway Corporate Park with 174 first year pupils. That jumped to 200 in 2014, with almost the same number enrolled for last year.
However the figure has been capped at 180 first year students for this September, according to parents. That has left at least ten students in the catchment area and a further ten just outside it bitterly disappointed not to be accepted into the school which has won national plaudits for its use of technology.
A group of those parents are organising a campaign to increase the capacity of the school to ensure those in the vicinity can attend.
Wilma Penman, whose daughter is in the final year of Corrandulla National School, said she was among the many parents who attended meetings in support of a secondary school in Claregalway in recent years.
“My daughter was in senior infants and we were hearing horror stories about children right up to the day before they were to start secondary school having no idea where they were going to go. Are we back to square one again?” she asked.
“When we got the letter to say she was refused we were floored to be honest. They’ve been prepared with the expectation of going to Claregalway – they are getting so anxious about it, they had made plans to go with their friends.”
As they live in the catchment area of Claregalway, she believes her daughter would not be entitled avail of the school bus scheme to other schools.
“After being refused for Claregalway, we could find ourselves at the bottom of the pile for Headford and town as well as they would have to accommodate their official catchment areas. It’s so worrying.”
Some parents have appealed the decision to the board of management and the patron, the Galway Roscommon Training and Education Board (GRTEB). Those outside the catchment will have a more difficult case to argue
“We could fight the quick fight and hope they’ll allow our ten children but what’s going to happen next year? What about the other ten? It’s only going to get worse, the population is increasing. To know a new school is already not going to meet the needs of the community is terrible.
“This is creating ripples for all the children further down the line, not just ours. This has the potential to be an act of extreme folly which will blight the inauguration of a long awaited new school and disappoint so many families in the community for years to come.”
Coláiste Bhaile Chláir opened in a temporary building in Claregalway’s Corporate Park. The school is projected to have 1,000 pupils by the time the first cohort of students sit their leaving certificate exams.
Priority is given to students who have a sibling in the school and secondly to the children of staff members. After that places are given to students who live inside Bus Éireann’s “extreme bus transport points” and thereafter students who live outside those points but attend a primary school within those points.
A 23-classroom extension was approved to the temporary building, with the permanent one due to open this September on the same site after planning permission was granted for a two-storey building with 17 specialist classrooms, six general classrooms, a library/resource room, as well as 45 car parking spaces.
The school – which has replaced text books with tablets – was selected as a 2014-2015 Microsoft Showcase School for its excellence in using mobile and cloud technology to better prepare students for success in the workplace – one of 150 worldwide.
Teachers Lara Dabbagh and Gareth Callan have also been selected as expert educators under the innovative schools programme, joining a group of 800 teachers worldwide acknowledged for their skills in the classroom.
The Connacht Tribune was unable to reach principal Alan Mongey for comment.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
