Cork principal says €50k donation from mystery benefactor will have "a huge impact"

The principal of a Cork school which received an anonymous donation of €50,000 said it will “make a huge impact in providing resources the school couldn’t otherwise afford”.

Wednesday was a good day for St Killian’s Special School in Mayfield.

In the morning the post contained a letter from a Cork solicitors’ firm and out of the envelope popped a cheque for €50,000 from a mystery benefactor, one of 10 schools and charities in Cork that got similar happy tidings through the post the same morning.

Later that day came confirmation that the school would get €40,000 in interim funding from the Health Services Executive (HSE) to meet the cost of hiring private therapists to attend the school up until Christmas and engage with the school’s 104 people who have varying needs.

The school has been campaigning for at least a year to get the therapists, withdrawn from all special schools in 2020, restored.

Ironically, that confirmation, which came in an email from the HSE regional executive officer in CH04, the region that covers Cork and Kerry, puts St Killian’s in a better situation than the four Cork schools included in the pilot scheme announced in August and scheduled to begin in September as term commenced.

As of this week, however, not one of the Cork schools involved has seen a therapist.

“Never a dull day at St Killian’s, it’s great, it’s really brilliant,” was the response of school principal Sue Lenihan when speaking to The Echo about the developments.

“Having that level of intervention and money will make a huge difference to us,” the principal said of the donation it received.

“I’m not using the €50,000 for therapists, I shouldn’t have to, that €50,000 is a gift to our children for extras, the therapy funding is a department responsibility, a government responsibility.

“That will be for sensory projects in the school that the children can see and touch and feel — the Student Council will have part of the decision-making responsibility there because the children’s voice and their choices are vital, it’s very important to engage them.”

In terms of the announcement that the school would get €40,000 from the HSE to pay for therapists until the end of term, the principal confirmed that the HSE had been in touch on Thursday morning to set up a meeting to discuss how to draw down the money.

She said she hoped once that was clear, the therapists would be in the schools very soon after that.

“Going forward I’m hoping to get a firm commitment that we will continue to get that money until a proper therapeutic intervention is sorted out because once we start, we can’t stop.”

Ms Lenihan was somewhat reassured by an exchange in the Dáil this week.

Mick Barry, the Cork North Central Solidarity/PBP TD, asked for an assurance that the interim funding for St Killian’s would not be ‘an 11-week wonder’ that would end in January.

In response, Tánaiste Mícheál Martin said: “The next government will simply have to, in my view, implement, it will have to be continued, whatever has started now will have to be continued.”

Ms Lenihan welcomed the Tánaiste’s remarks.