25 of 33 schools in Dublin Rathdown have lands zoned as residential. There is concern that more schools could be under pressure to give up land for housing. The Minister for Education must put a stop to the fire sale of playing fields and land around our schools.
We urgently need you to contact all Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Councillors and public representatives to encourage them to support a motion to have our school lands rezoned. This motion will be raised at the June 12th DLR County Council meeting.
List of Councillors to send the Template Email below to:
sbrennan@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, gtallon@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, soneill@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, sniccormaic@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, kfurlong@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, jbailey@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, mfayne@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, patriciastewart.ie@gmail.com, cdevlin@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, mmerrigan@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, dokeeffe@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, mhalpin@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, osmyth@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, eblain@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, tmurphy@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, lmccarthy@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, pobrien@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, kdaly@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, lmcgovern@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, ccurran@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, jgildea@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, jcuffe@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, denisoc@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, carriesmyth@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, hlewis@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, sobrien@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, jkennedy@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, bsaul@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, ldockery@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, dsmith@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, ddonnelly@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, cmckinney@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, alex@alexwhite.ie, josepha.madigan@oireachtas.ie, catherine.martin@oireachtas.ie, shane.ross@oireachtas.ie, neale.richmond@oireachtas.ie, gerry.horkan@oireachtas.ie, minister@education.gov.ie, olglandforsale@gmail.comDear Councillors, Deputies, Ministers, Senators,
As you are most likely aware, The Religious Order of Jesus and Mary (RJM) have just sold all of the 5.4 acres of land, attached to Our Lady's Grove Primary and Secondary schools in Goatstown for €13 million, without planning permission. I have children in the school and I am very concerned about this issue as the selling of these lands will have a profoundly negative impact on our school as follows:
- No green space for the children of the primary school – to play, to do sports, to be outside
- Existing pre-school & aftercare facilities are under threat
- No room for the future expansion of the school. It is currently hugely oversubscribed and there are many new housing schemes about to come on stream in the area
- Congestion on access to school and Goatstown road
- Huge threat to the health and safety of our children
- Divestment of the educational campus of facilities for future generations
A concerned parents group has been set up and this has been very successful in raising awareness both with parents, local residents and in the media. We have set up a blog, Facebook page and an online petition, see links attached. A public meeting was held on Tuesday 30th May that was attended by approximately 120 people. At the meeting we had a robust discussion on our concerns and started to work out a plan of action over the coming months.
Religious orders in the vicinity have sold other land attached to public schools in recent years - Notre Dame in Churchtown last year, St. Pauls in Raheny, Oatlands school have all sold land recently and the Edward Rice Trust of Clonkeen College is now planning to do the same.
As Councillors you hold the power to zone the land for its proper use. If this land were rezoned so that it could not be developed for residential housing, this problem for our schools would not exist. Now that this land is in developer’s hand, your action needs to be SWIFT and DECISIVE.
As T.D.s and Ministers, you hold the power to change the legislation to stop the selling off of what morally-speaking are precious community assets.
We rely on your support for this initiative.
Best regards,
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