Last November, the Minister for Education and Skills announced a new school building program to cover the period 2016 – 2021. Despite extensive campaigning by GET2LS this list did not provide for a new second-level school for Galway.

Following last November’s announcement GET2LS requested the demographic data on which the Department of Education and Skills based its conclusion that Galway did not need a new second-level school. We received this data on December 22nd in the form of 2 maps and a cover letter, which can now be found on our website.

The data provided by the Department provokes more questions than it provides answers. As a result we have sent a lengthy list of questions back to the Department and are awaiting their response. Our questions can also be found on our website.

Now that the General Election has been called, GET2LS has intensified its efforts to seek support for our campaign among all the candidates standing in the Galway West and Galway East constituencies.

GET2LS has invited all candidates standing for election in Galway West to meet with the GET2LS committee on February 8th and all candidates standing for election in Galway East to meet with the GET2LS committee on February 12th.

We will use the meeting to remind the candidates about our campaign and to ask them what, if elected, they could do to help us.

Once these meetings have taken place we will provide you with details of the responses provided by all candidates.

In the meantime, we once again need to ask for your help.

If politicians approach you seeking votes in the upcoming election, please ask them what they would do to make an Educate Together second level school in Galway a reality.

The following are key points you could bring to their attention.

• There are now 5 Educate primary schools in Galway that between them accept 6 classes of junior infants each year (in Knocknacarra, Newcastle, Kilcolgan, Claregalway and Tuam).
• Over 1,200 expressions of interest in an Educate Together second level school in Galway have been collected by GET2LS.
• There is virtually no choice in terms of ethos available to children at second level in Galway and the few new ETB schools are vastly over-subscribed.

In our last update we advised you that we would be holding a public meeting in January. We have decided to postpone this until after the election to give us more time to focus on meeting politicians before then. However, all of our committee meetings are advertised on Facebook and everyone is welcome to attend a committee meeting at any stage. We will update you on the revised date for the public meeting soon.