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PARENTS HAVE RAISED concerns after it emerged that school grounds used for children’s activities are to be put up for sale by the religious order that owns them.
A primary school, secondary school, Montessori and daycare centre are located at the land on Goatstown Road, Dublin 14, owned by the Order of Jesus and Mary.
This would sell almost all of the school’s ‘green area’ pitches, with just tarmac and indoor hockey facilities remaining.
Parents say that this development would create road safety problems, congestion issues, as well as limit further development at the school, where places at the primary school are reportedly in demand.
The religious order are to sell the land for a reported €10 million.
In 2009 they sold other parts of the land that was zoned for housing, and the funds of which went towards a retirement fund for members of the Order.
Lisa Ryan, a mother who has two children at Our Lady’s Grove primary school, and one in the Montessori, says that although she wasn’t involved in the school at that time, there wasn’t much outrage when that happened.
“Many people thought that after the first tranche of land was sold and developed that the last piece of land would be left to the school,” she told TheJournal.ie.
A lot of people are very loyal to the order – they built the secondary school in the 1950s, the primary school was built by the state – but it will come to nothing if this land goes on the market.
As the Order are the private owners and they’re entitled to sell the land, Lisa and other parents think the government should consider buying the land, renting out facilities to clubs to make the money back.
She and other parents have written to the Department of Education to ask them to get involved and so far have been told that the government are ‘looking into the issue’.
Other developments
Last week it emerged that over seven acres of playing fields at Clonkeen College are to be sold by the Christian Brothers for €18 million.
“There seems to be a trend that religious orders are selling off assets that are valuable to the community,” Lisa says. “Notre Dame in Churchtown last year, St Paul’s in Raheny, Oatlands school have all sold land recently.”
“It does feel like the school’s being stripped back for the future,” she said.
Parents at Our Lady’s Grove are to meet next Tuesday at 8pm to discuss the issue in more detail.
Wow. RTE Celebrities complaining that the world doesn’t love their podcasts.
Newsflash. Your not in Montrose now Toto.
You’d get a bit tired of listening to hours and hours of content talking about mental health
@Ned Gerblansky: Bressies podcast is actually very interesting, and very helpful, which is why it’s won an award.
@Ned Gerblansky: Yip, while people with mental illness are struggling because mental ” health” is taking away valuable resources. Learn how to meditate, exercise and become more resilient. It’s pretty simple and it’s free.
@Ned Gerblansky: Now they’re whining that they can’t make money from it. FFS.
@D’oh: where do you see them whining?
Blindboy isn’t talented. Take the bloody bag off your head, it was funny for 5 minutes, 10 years ago
@Dub Cell: he doesn’t do it to be funny. Also, I think 2 best selling books, constant sold out live podcasts and a listenership of over 1m people each week will say otherwise.
You wouldn’t know talent if it smacked you in the face
@Dub Cell: could you be more wrong!?
@Tom: He’s spouting out populist dseudo intellectual drivel.
@Tom: it’s a matter of opinion Tom, I’m entitled to mine as you are to yours. I feel he jumps on bandwagons (gretha) and uses intellectual sound bites which appeals to his liberal followers. He made a song called “horse outside” ffs, he’s hardly Christopher Hitchens material
@Dub Cell: I heard an interview with Blindboy on the radio about 2 years ago (Guess what, it was dealing with mental health!). Inside about 20 minutes, in an effort to agree with opiniond coming in from listeners, he contradicted himself twice.
How can he win in the British Podcast Awards when he’s Irish? Are the Brits at it again?
podcasts are so last decade !
@ed w: No, they are the future, so much to listen to and you can pick and choose what you want and when you want, and they are not restricted by radio rule and you can support them if you want. Haven’t really listened to a radio show in ages.
I suppose the reason podcasts are not included in the JNL RADIO listeners figures is in the name. It’s a different medium. Listening to a podcast is a more focussed and deliberate activity than listening to the radio, which might be just on in the background, being listened to by multiple people. What advertisers need is a JNLP statistic.
@Conall: The article misses pointing out a very important fact …the JNLR research costs thousands and thousands of euro to conduct the listenership survey and compile the ratings – this is paid for (jointly -the hint is in the title ) by radio stations who use the findings to sell advertising – are the podcasters going to contribute and pay for the research to be commissioned or included in JNLR – somebody has to actually fund the research it is not free – and the model that evolved for radio made perfect sense to get it ot this point – makes sense to ask now HOW to move forward but just reads like having a rant without addressing the key issue -how much Poscasters are willing to who wants to actually PAY for the research to be commissioned – there is a big shift underway in terms of listening habits and a similar shift required in terms of the model to monetize podcasting etc
Can’t take Breslin seriously. Tired of z listers pushing this stuff. RTE isn’t much better with its rampant nepotism over the years.
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