Emergency motion at Carlow MD meeting aims to pause college closure
An aerial view of Carlow College Photo: michaelorourkephotography.ie
“WHAT were the magic words?” asked student Diarmuid Cummins after local councillors passed an emergency motion to pause the closure of Carlow College, pending scrutiny of the decision.
Diarmuid, and lecturer John McHugh, sat in on the recent Carlow Municipal District meeting and welcomed the “unanimous cross-party support” for the movement to save Carlow College.
Cllr Adrienne Wallace brought the motion after an Oireachtas committee hearing into the decision to close the college “left us with more questions than answers” and “exposed a lot of contradictions in the accounts of those involved”.
What was clear, cllr Wallace said, was that it was a consultant’s report commissioned by SETU that “changed the tune from a merger into a closure”.
As stakeholders, the council should have access to this unpublished report and get a chance to analyse it, she argued.
Although it didn’t take much persuading to get all of Carlow Municipal District councillors on board, cllr Wallace noted that the college is a heritage site that should be preserved, as well as an important local employer. “There’s the cultural significance that we all appreciate,” she said.
She also pointed out the hypocrisy in the government not wanting to take on the college’s debt. Cllr Fergal Browne was amused by this, noting that as a primary school principal “I don’t operate on a profit basis”.
“It would be shameful on us that we don’t exhaust every avenue,” agreed cllr John Cassin, with cllr Fintan Phelan echoing this statement.
Cllr Andrea Dalton requested that it be added to the motion that the council calls on SETU to use the college for the delivery of educational courses: “I want the ambiguity removed, that it’s not going to be a car park or student accommodation.”
After the meeting, Diarmuid said that a rumour the building would be used for student accommodation “would be such a waste. I can understand SETU wanting it, but it’s at a big cost to Carlow”.
