Inside 'the Titanic', Donegal's sinking abandoned housing estate
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Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘We're in a dire situation': Parents fundraising ‘an average of €10,000 per primary school'
Parents are fundraising an average €10,000 annually per primary school due to financial pressure, according to a new survey. The poll of 227 schools was conducted last month by the Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA), which supports about 85 per cent of all primary schools across the State. It found that capitation funding for primary schools, the main source of State funding, on average falls about €25,000 short of real costs. Capitation funding is geared towards general upkeep costs, such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and day-to-day costs. Edel Ní Bhroin, principal of Scoil Aonghusa in Drogheda, Co Louth, said the quality of education available to primary school pupils suffers due to the large amounts of time and energy devoted to meeting basic running costs. READ MORE 'The children miss out because the focus can't be on the teaching and learning 100 per cent,' Ms Ní Bhroin said. She pointed to primary schools' reliance on parents' fundraising efforts through events such as raffles and bake sales, which is highlighted in CPSMA's report. Describing the great lengths the families of Scoil Aonghusa's 170 pupils go to, Ms Ní Bhroin said parent Patrick Carolan recently participated in a 24-hour cycle challenge around Kildare's Mondello track, with sponsorship from members of the school community amounting to €6,200 raised. 'It's not fair that parents have to make up the shortfall in Government funding,' she said. Another principal commented in the survey: 'We are in a dire situation. Costs are spiralling out of control. The costs of a box of A4 copier paper and day-to-day items such as toilet paper, soap, etc have skyrocketed since Covid.' Schools say they are being forced to take a range of cost-saving measures to get by, such as reducing expenditure on school tours – a reality Ms Ní Bhroin's school is facing. In January, Scoil Aonghusa received €25,515 – 70 per cent of its capitation funding – and received the remaining €10,935 in June 2025 to meet total running costs. Having paid for insurance, light, heat and cleaning bills up to March, Ms Ní Bhroin said just €8,800 remained in school funds at that time. 'This is the bare-minimum stuff, this is not extra. This is literally just the skin and bones of trying to keep your school afloat and to try to give the best possible experience for your children. There's no fluff there.' Ms Ní Bhroin carried out her own survey among 23 school principals in Co Louth, which she said brought to light 'the stress and surprising shame that school leaders and management feel about the precarious financial situation they are experiencing'. 'School communities are not being informed openly of the situation for fear that it may reflect negatively on their school.' She called on Minister for Education Helen McEntee to deliver equal capitation grants for primary schools and secondary schools 'to ensure fairness for all children'. The current standard rate of capitation grant is €200 per pupil in primary schools and €345 per secondary school student. From September 2025, budget increases will see this rise to €224 per primary school pupil and €386 per student in post-primary school. When asked to calculate the level of capitation funding per pupil, surveyed, schools reported that matching the €386 received at second level was 'vital' to meeting additional running costs due to inflation. The report found that recruitment expenses cost €964.40 on average, with some larger schools reporting expenses in excess of €2,000. An average of €4,326.37 was spent on the maintenance of special educational needs (SEN) equipment in the 2023-2024 academic year. While schools are provided with initial funding to buy such equipment, regular maintenance and annual certification requirements proves costly. Seamus Mulconry, general secretary of the CPSMA, said post-pandemic inflation has 'shredded' school budgets. 'Primary schools have always been underfunded. This survey shows that some are now under water financially,' Mr Mulconry said. 'Post-pandemic inflation has shredded school budgets, exhausted reserves and put many schools into an unsustainable position. We need a big increase in capitation this year just to keep schools going.' A spokesman for the Department of Education said the Government is committed to increasing capitation funding for schools of all types 'to ensure that schools can meet the elevated day-to-day running costs and reduce the financial burden on families'. Pointing to measures announced in Budget 2025, including the 12 per cent rise in capitation rates from September for primary and post-primary schools, he said: 'this increase to assist schools with increased day-to-day running costs will cost €30 million. 'This builds on increases provided in the previous year's budget, which is resulting in a 22 per cent increase over two years in the level of capitation rates paid to schools. An additional €45 million in cost-of-living supports for all primary, special and post-primary schools in the free scheme was also announced to help them deal with increased costs.'
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
Róisín Ingle: I roar at my daughter so loudly for not wearing a bike helmet, a passerby asks her if she is okay
Feckin' açai bowls. Or acky bowls as our relatives in the North call them, because in fairness you'd never know how to pronounce the word if you hadn't heard it spoken out loud. At this stage my daughters are made up of one-third açai bowl, one-third iced coffee and one-third matcha (green drinks young people queue for in town that taste like grass). I mean, I assume they taste like grass. I'm not actually going to be caught drinking one of them. I'm 53. Feckin' matcha. Feckin' açai bowls. I don't understand the appeal of these things. I'm still not totally sure what an açai bowl is to be honest. These are the distances that must grow between you and your teenage children. Like the new words. They say 'whelp' and 'bro' and 'mate'. I blame TikTok . I blame Love Island . It's as it should be. The language is morphing. The trends are trending. Some young men walk past our house. One of them says 'sorry, dear' stepping to the side of the pavement. I wonder who he's talking to. He's talking to me. I am 'dear'. Oh dear. [ I have a secret urge to throw a good portion of my young children's 'art' in the bin Opens in new window ] Our daughters' bikes were left outside all winter. Rain fell. Then more rain. We hadn't bothered with a cover and now the bikes aren't fit for the road. Poor bikes, I think when I look at them. Chains rusting from lack of use. Locked to railings in our tiny front yard, going nowhere fast. I want them to be cyclists. To make good use of the brand new bike lanes that emerged after years of interminable roadworks that clogged up our north inner-city arteries. Two wheels good. They walk, they are not as averse to walking as their mother, thank goodness. They take buses. But on the bike. On the bike, girls, you won't know yourselves. READ MORE I give up trying to persuade them. I'm as bereft about this as I was about the fact that they don't seem to want to read books any more. It breaks my heart a bit even though I know what they do is none of my business. A friend gave me a framed picture of Khalil Gibran's poem when they were born 16 years ago, which begins 'your children are not your children ... you may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts'. I know, I know. And yet I mourn the books they'll never read. They will learn about life in other ways. It is okay. All will be well. But feckin' açai bowls. The bikes are wrecked. The books I buy gather dust. Then something miraculous happens. My daughters declare this to be The Summer of Reading. I come home and see them lounging on the sofa, not a screen in sight, only a big thick book. Rachel's Holiday. My heart skips a beat. Then they decide, sing hosannas, it will also be the Summer of Cycling. We bring the bikes to the brilliant men in Penny Farthing Cycles and they fix them up. We buy a cover. No more rust. It is one of those gorgeous sunny days, dripping with light. We have cycling plans. And then. A massive row. In the middle of a busy street. I want one daughter to wear a helmet and she isn't having any of it. She cycles away from me and I roar at her. I mean I roar. A passerby asks her if she is okay, if she needs help, that's how loud I roar. I am ashamed. I am out of order. Stricken. She's gone. A flurry of texts. Eventually she relents. She cycles to meet me and she gets an iced coffee (feckin' iced coffee) while I drink my Americano. We're at the Russell Street Bakery near Croke Park where such are the delectable ham and cheese croissants, that a group of burly builders tell me they've become addicted to them, the way some builders are addicted to chicken fillet rolls. The bakery is beside a branch of the charity Fighting Words. My daughter doesn't see the irony, not yet, but I do. I apologise. She forgives. She says even with the roaring she still wants to spend this sunny day with me. I'm moved almost to tears. Dublin Port's Tolka Estuary Greenway has views of the Clontarf seafront and Bull Island. We get helmets. We get the day back. We pick up picnic supplies in the bakery, we pick up her sister and we all cycle to the Dublin Port Tolka Estuary Greenway. You get there through the East Point Business Park. The greenway has been here for ages but we're only doing it now for the first time. 'It's like being on holidays,' my daughter says. Dappled light through the forest entrance. The estuary sparkling, butterflies crossing our path, birds flitting through wildflowers. The history of Dublin's docks laid out before us. We give out about our city. We wonder why we can't have nice things. But this is the nicest of nice things. [ Why has it taken so long to develop a greenway for Dublin Bay? Opens in new window ] We eat our picnic looking out at the bay, listening to the birds, feeling lucky. Much later, after the recoupling on Love Island, mate, we return to the greenway with their father. It's after 10pm. The moon is big and yellow. The lights from Clontarf dance on the water, the roosting birds louder now. The four of us have the place to ourselves. The swish of our bikes, the call of the birds. All will be well.
Irish Times
17 hours ago
- Irish Times
Woman believed to be Ireland's oldest person dies days before 109th birthday
A woman born in the year of the Easter Rising and who survived two pandemics has died just days before her 109th birthday. Sarah Coyle, believed to be Ireland's oldest person, died peacefully at her daughter Marian Galligan's home in Castleknock, Dublin , on Monday July 14th, just 10 days before her 109th birthday, her family confirmed. She was surrounded by her family when she died, her grandson Thomas Galligan said. Just days earlier, she thanked the family for all they had done for her and 'wanted us to know we had her blessing', he said. Ms Galligan told The Irish Times earlier this year her mother, who grew up in Co Wicklow, had memories of significant periods in Irish history, including from the Civil War (1922-1923) and even the War of Independence (1919-1921). READ MORE Those memories, Ms Galligan said, included of the Black and Tans , British forces operating in Ireland during the War of Independence who were notorious for their violence. Ms Coyle remembered one occasion when all the men called James in her home area were rounded up by the Black and Tans in an effort to identify who had shot one of their members. Ms Coyle's father James was among those taken up the mountains but, while his family feared the worst, he returned home uninjured several hours later. Ms Coyle had nine siblings, some of whom also lived beyond their centenary year. Her sister Lily Kelly, who lives in Solihull in England, turned 103 in April. One of her brothers, Andy Byrne, died shortly before his 101st birthday. Ms Coyle was born in Knockatomcoyle, a townland in Co Wicklow, before her family moved to Coolkenno, near Tullow. She was working as a housekeeper in Foxrock when she met Tom Coyle from Cavan at a dance. [ Ireland's oldest woman (108) recalls Black and Tans and attributes long life to 'new nettles' in cabbage Opens in new window ] They married and lived in Drumcondra. The couple had four children but two of their daughters died as newborns. Ms Coyle, who lost her eyesight in her early thirties, has five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Her husband worked as a postman until he had a stroke in his late 50s, followed by a brain haemorrhage. When asked what her mother attributed her longevity to, Marian Galligan said she would gather the first nettles every spring and put them in the cabbage. 'She used to say, 'that will purify your blood'.'
