Oireachtas committee hearing on closure of Carlow College

ANOTHER protest against the planned closure of Carlow College took place on Sunday 12 July, ahead of an Oireachtas committee meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at 12.30pm.

The meeting will bring together the president of SETU Veronica Campbell, Carlow College executives, staff representatives and representatives of the Department of Education to discuss the future of the college and redundancy concerns.

Carlow councillor Adrienne Wallace organised the protest on Sunday, which gathered at the college and moved to Potato Market, where lecturer James Heany, student Diarmuid Cummins and cllr Wallace each spoke. Over 70 people attended it, including staff, students and past pupils.

Sinn Féin TD Natasha Newsome Drennan and Social Democrats senator Patricia Stephenson showed up to the protest, along with a Labour Party representative. “There is good support among the left. It’s a very united group challenging the closure,” said cllr Wallace.

“We would absolutely love to have the college merged with a different college, like Maynooth University, where there’s room and an appreciation of the arts. Not that SETU don’t have those things, but they’re very busy and lean in a different direction,” she said.

However, the more “realistic ambition” is to provide enhanced redundancy or an option of redeployment for the 90 teaching and administrative staff who will lose their jobs, she said.

The Oireachtas committee meeting will be one of the last opportunities to negotiate the closure before a lull during the Dáil and council recess, said cllr Wallace, but she remains hopeful that the college will remain high up on the government’s agenda in September.

“There’s sustained momentum” challenging the current plan for the college, she continued.