Sep 29 2008
One million pounds for Irish Language Education Centre
 Pic: Gaelscolaíochta |
THE establishment of an Irish language education centre first announced for Ballyvourney nine years ago is in serious doubt due to government cutbacks over the economic downturn.In March 2007, former Education minister Mary Hanafin announced that four staff were to be assigned to the proposed Ballyvourney centre, and that €1 million was to be allocated to an Comhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta (COGG), the advisory body who would be responsible for the resource. |
COGG have since maintained that the allocated €1 million was not for the Baile Bhúirne centre or for the employment of any staff there, and the money is already being spent by COGG at its Dublin base.
Rather than employing any additional staff in Ballyvourney, COGG chief executive Muireann Ní Mhóráin says the group will be losing one of four staff in Dublin, due to an employee leaving, and the money not being there to hire anybody else.
Ms Ní Mhóráin revealed that the Ballyvourney posts “were announced, not sanctioned,” with no movement on the recruitment of staff since the jobs were mentioned 18 months ago.
On top of that, COGG received a Dept of Education and Science directive on 22 August, instructing it to cut recruitment and payroll costs so as to achieve an overall cost reduction of 3% in 2009.
It was intended that COGG would have offices in a refurbished Coláiste Íosagáin in Baile Bhúirne, and that the four appointed staff would be provided with temporary accommodation in a prefabricated building on the nearby Údarás na Gaeltachta industrial estate.
Údarás applied for planning permission for the prefab building last January, and Cork County Council have sought further information twice since in relation to the development.
Meanwhile, COGG have been offered more temporary accommodation where the Óige na Gaeltachta youth organisation is located in Baile Bhúirne until the prefab building is ready, but with a halt being put to staff recruitment it looks like there will be no Irish language education centre, and/or no one to work there in 2009, ten years after the then Education Minister, Micheál Martin, first announced it in 1999.
[Source]
