‘We found out from TD tweet that school was moving’

STAFF at a Dublin primary school learned it was being moved to yet another temporary location – almost 3km away – after the news was shared on social media by a TD, a teacher has said.

Muireann Carr, deputy principal of Ballinteer Educate Together, appeared before the Oireachtas Education Committee yesterday where she told TDs and senators how pupils, staff and parents were upset and surprised to learn of the move.

Her school was established in 2012 but has yet to receive a permanent home. Staff are still waiting for it to be built, and Ms Carr described communications from the Department of Education as ‘quite lacking’.

‘We found out we were moving to the Notre Dame campus via a TD on Twitter, and we had not been informed of that,’ she told the committee. ‘It was then announced like it was a great thing, but the school wasn’t aware of that. So I think that was a big shock... nobody had heard about this before.’

When asked by Fianna Fáil’s education spokesman Thomas Byrne who the TD was who sent the tweet, Ms Carr was advised by the chair, Fiona O’Loughlin, not to name the individual. Ms Carr explained that her school now has 275 pupils, with a waiting list of over 250 children for 60 places in junior infants 2019.

For the first five years, they occupied a section of St Tiernan’s Community School in Balally. They were then recently instructed that they would need to ‘move everything to Notre Dame in Churchtown, Dublin 14’, the committee was told.

Ms Carr said this was a ‘distance of about 3km, but traffic means it can take a half-hour or more of driving time’ to get there. A representative from the Department of Education who appeared before the committee said the issue raised about how it can improve communications is ‘one of the learning experiences we will take away from today’.