Water charges are another drain on under-funded schools says de Burca
Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, raised the issue of water charges for schools at a recent meeting of the Water and Environmental Services committee of Wicklow County Council.
Cllr de Burca referred to a recent letter of complaint she had received from the National School in Donard which had just received a bill for over 2,000 euros in water charges. “This national school has just 106 pupils and like many other schools, its Parent’s Association fundraises every year to cover basic costs” she says. “It is not acceptable that schools are now expected to pay water charges on top of all of the other expenses they must cover”.
The Green Party councillor was told by senior council officials that an EU Directive obliged Ireland to introduce water charges for all “non-domestic” customers including schools and that all such customers must be subject to water-metering by the end of 2006. Council officials informed her that in the meantime, fixed charges would be applied to Wicklow schools on the basis of the number of classrooms they contained.
“The vast majority of primary and indeed secondary schools are struggling to meet their current costs” says de Burca. “It is just not acceptable that they will now be expected to meet the cost of water charges on top of everything else. I believe that either special arrangements should be put in place in relation to water charges for schools, or that the Department of Education should provide additional funding to cover this financial burden on already overstretched schools”.
