Cork city centre school halts protest plans following meeting with Council officials

A CITY centre primary school has agreed to postpone planned daily protests, which it had warned would bring the city to a standstill, following a meeting with Cork City Council.

Cork Educate Together NS (CETNS) on Grattan Street has been campaigning for a school traffic warden for several years and had planned a daily series of rolling protests on the pedestrian crossing outside the school.

The protests were due to commence on Monday and, following a meeting with Cork City Council, the school has agreed to postpone the action.

Maura O’Riordan, principal of CETNS, told The Echo that a meeting took place earlier this week between the school and members of Cork City Council executive and councillors.

Ms O’Riordan said that all present listened to the school’s concerns, and it was agreed that the traffic management situation on Grattan Street needed to be addressed.

“While no guarantees were forthcoming, we left the meeting with the firm impression that funding will be actively pursued to remediate the pedestrian crossing outside our school gate,” Ms O’Riordan said.

Ms O’Riordan said CETNS had repeatedly applied for a traffic warden and had been told their application was refused due to lack of funding.

Following the school’s meeting this week with Cork City Council, Ms O’Riordan said it was her understanding that the current procedures for allocating funding for school traffic wardens would be reviewed.

Ms O’Riordan said the school was cautiously optimistic that their goal was within reach, and given this development felt a protest was currently unwarranted.

“We do however reserve the right to engage in such a protest in the future if the progress fails to materialise,” she said, adding that trust was “a keystone element” in all negotiations.

“The trust we place in our Cork City Councill officials, will we hope, be vindicated, Ms O’Riordan said.

Fine Gael city councillor Shane O’Callaghan said the meeting had been productive and he was hopeful that the concerns raised would be addressed “in the fulness of time”.

Green Party councillor Dan Boyle said the meeting had allowed a good understanding of the issues, and those attending had showed support for measures necessary to address the situation.