Council rule out modular accommodation for Holy Trinity NS

MAYO County Council has ruled out the use of modular accommodation at Westport’s Convent of Mercy for one of the oldest schools in the country.

Holy Trinity NS were recently told that the former Scoil Pádraig on Altamount Street, which had been earmarked as their new school building, was to be offered to the Sacred Heart Secondary School as temporary accommodation.

Local representatives and members of the school community have expressed anger at the decision, with county councillors accusing the Department of Education of ‘pitting two schools against each other’.

The school and the department have been involved in a long-running dispute over a new school building.

The existing building on the Newport Road is more than 200 years old and has long been deemed unfit for purpose.

Kevin Kelly, Chief Executive of Mayo County Council, said his understanding was that it would not be possible to accommodate the school in modular buildings on the council-owned convent site.

Renovations

THE convent is currently undergoing renovations to develop housing and other civic spaces as part of a multi-million-euro redevelopment.

“I’m basing it on previous briefings in respect of the development,” Mr Kelly said after the issue was raised at the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council.

Councillors from the Westport area reiterated their criticism of the Department of Education over their handling of the situation.

Cllr John O’Malley said the proposal to move classes from the Sacred Heart School to Scoil Pádraig ‘smacks of discrimination’ and called for it to be halted.

A proposal to co-locate the school with Educate Together had previously been scrapped after local opposition.

Cllr Brendan Mulroy accused the Department of Education of ‘coming in with an iron fist’ and picking on ‘the smallest minority school there is in Westport with no Catholic ethos’.

Cllr Mulroy said the local Church of Ireland community had ‘played a central part’ in the success of Westport.

He also noted that the Church of Ireland had made their church available when the local Catholic church was undergoing repairs.

_{Cllr Brendan Mulroy}

“The relation is that we’re in a situation now where we’re looking at united Ireland further down the road. A vote will take place. But if you were looking in from the other communities looking in at Ireland at the moment for a united Ireland, and you were to see the way the Church of Ireland and Holy Trinity are being treated, how would you vote, Cathaoirleach,” Cllr Mulroy stated.

The Fianna Fáil councillor, who has written to Minister for Education, Norma Foley on the matter, said the Department of Education should ‘hang their heads in shame’ over the situation.

“I think it’s shocking, in this day and age, in 2024, that a minority community in our county is being treated like this.”