Fresh fears over future of Mayo GMIT Campus

THE retired public representative who campaigned for the establishment of a third-level institute in Mayo over 20 years ago has called for top level political decisions to be taken to safeguard the future of the GMIT Mayo campus in Castlebar.

Paddy McGuinness, who led the Mayo RTC Action Committee back in the 1990s, was reacting to reports that the institute is facing increasing financial challenges due to falling student numbers and funding cutbacks.

A bilateral meeting between the Higher Education Authority and GMIT late last year heard that while the institute had been successful in securing programmes in the areas of food, innovation and hospitality, the external demand isn’t there and ‘this is challenging’.

A report of that meeting further stated: “In order to drive up numbers on the Mayo campus, there has been an attempt to bring in a younger cohort, which means that mature students, as a proportion of total students, is falling.

'This is accompanied by an overall decline in demand from mature students, while the geographic location of the Mayo campus means that the viability is always in question.”

Mr. McGuinness, a former Fine Gael county councillor, said every step must be taken to ensure the viability of the campus because it was ‘extremely difficult’ to secure it in the first place.

He hit out: “It is little wonder that so many independent TDs were elected in last February’s general election because it simply reflected the level of neglect by consecutive governments.

“I know the thinking at central level is to impose cutbacks if figures are not matching up to expectations. But I would certainly be extremely disappointed if anything is done to downgrade Castlebar.

“It has produced, over the past two decades, many graduates who went on to become serious academics.

“It is not beyond our incoming government’s ambit to put the funding in place to secure its viability into the future.”