You are here: Home
Print this page

Welcome

05 December 2009

December Newsletter

SETSAG Newsletter December 09
At the meeting of SETSAG on the 30th November, Bob Dowling (Chairman of Educate Together) gave us the benefit of his experience in spearheading the establishment of a new secondary school in Donabate. Some of his key points were:
  1. Keep local papers up to date on every development and arrange at reasonable intervals publicity stunts (children sitting on benches in an empty field or an Educate Together flag erected on the site of the next secondary school for Swords etc). The purpose of such publicity is twofold: create an expectation in the community that the school will be delivered and also to create a momentum that carries any political resistance before it.
  2. Need to get committments from local councillors, TD's and Fingal County Council to support the project.
  3. The Department of Education must be convinced that there is need for a new school, a site for it and strong local support for the project. So when meeting the Department of Education it is important to have School Principals (Primary), Councillors, TD's and representatives of Fingal County Council there.
Last Wednesday (25th Nov) there was a presentation by the Educate Together Secondary team to TD's and Senators in the Dail. It was sponsored by Mary O'Rourke. Gerry McKevitt reported that it was well attended by about 40~45 and that the reception was positive. Bob Dowling has indicated that he will arrange for SETSAG members to meet TD's from Fingal in the Dail before Christmas with a view to improving our political profile and building on previous contacts.Other points were:
  • Shay had made contact with the pavillions with a view to having a stand there in Feb. 2010. Gerry will try and coordinate with the ET Roadshow to support this effort.
  • Vincent and Malcolm are meeting with the Principal of Thornleigh ET this week as a preliminary step to establishing the interest among parents for an ET Secondary School.
  • Gerry collected more signatures from parents at Swords ET open night on the 25th Nov. - as a general note we're going to try and collate all names collected to date into an Excel sheet.
  • Gerry also suggested that we setup a Google Group where we can upload documents to and have internal discussions. This has been initiated at http://groups.google.com/group/setsag
  • Next meeting January to be confirmed for the 8th or 10th of January 2010 at Swords ET at 8pm.
Bob Dowling made the further point that it would be useful to have a solicitor on board (i.e. as part of SETSAG) so that further down the road we could look at the legal aspects of issues like 'parental choice'. SETSAG: Vincent O'Malley, Malcolm Carter, Gerry McKevitt, Siobhán Hegarty, Sea Musharford, Tony Mackey, Catherine Delaney, Deirdre Moffat, Carlo Volto, Patrick Quearney, Caroline Fitzsimons, Sonja Clayton, Deanne McGuinness, Lisa Donaldson, Tony Dolan.

^ Top

Next page:
News Articles