Trying to sourcing a story I heard today on Newstalk about the Dept. Education apologising to a school becasue they had no working boiler for 5 weeks and the school didn’t have the 300 euro to fix it and all the kids had to wear “layers”.
The heating often broke down in my primary school. We were told to wear our coats and just got on with it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some little Johnny or Mary will take the Dept of Education to court because their 'uman rights have been infringed.
Anyone know how a school typically would pay for the fuel – annually/bimonthly? The school presumably would have gone through more than 300 euro in fuel if the boiler had been running for 5 weeks.
Also suppliers like bord gais often don’t require payment upfront for services and repairs.
Chinese whisper much?
She did not say they had no working boiler for 5 weeks. It sounded like a problem with the timer. Today when she got in the boiler had not started and so she had to flick a switch herself. She stated that it was currently still cold in the school but hoped that when the kids got in it would have warmed up.
It had been like that for 5 weeks. The boiler itself was relatively new.
When she was given the opportunity after 9 to put the issue to the Minister directly she acknowledged that there were grants but that the administration involved was too large for day to day expenses. The Minister agreed but talking in the background suggested that the boiler must be under some sort of warranty.
I don’t disagree with anything that was said. It must be a nightmare trying to manage the upkeep of a large building on a tiny budget.
Anyways the full interview should be available on the Newstalk site. Around 8:20 and then 9:10. The school was in Bluebell.
Watch out for capitation grant fiasco early in new year. Imagine the issue with student grants across every primary school. ‘New’ computerised headcount filing system isn’t quite as computerised as it pretends to be…
No, only a newstalk headline news bulletin .