LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Mayo people being denied an education

Sir,

AS a student of GMIT I would like to point out a few things.

On a personal level, I am one of a large group of mature students who will be denied an education through the closure of GMIT. We have family commitments that mean travelling to Galway is not an option. Given the substandard roads and lack of effective public transport, this will mean a round trip of around four hours per day, travelling at peak times when Galway is gridlocked.

Then there is the cost. Without an adequate public transport system, that means private travel is necessary, and most can barely manage the cost to get to the Mayo campus as it is.

I am also a mother and my son was due to begin the digital media degree course in Mayo, which has now been cancelled. The reason given was that there was not enough interest. This is a downright lie. There were 17 students enrolled to begin the course.

However, that number would have been a lot higher had prospective students not been told by the Galway campus that the course was not going ahead before any decision had been made public, and before the application process was even half-finished.

My son and thousands of young people in Mayo are also now being denied an education, because I, like many thousands of other Mayo families, am unable to subsidise him to live in Galway or anywhere else.

The Galway campus has been actively redirecting students away from Mayo. When the funding crisis first became public I had a strong sense of deja vu, since I lived through it in the UK in the 1980s under the Thatcher government. Back then the same statements were made, the same excuses and downright lies trundled out.

I estimated that the Mayo campus would last around another four years, a gradual downgrade each year until it was announced that the campus was not viable. However, it seems that four years was an optimistic estimate given the current situation.

Now, 15 lecturers have been told by their union to relocate to Galway campus or risk being relocated around the country in the near future. That smacks of blackmail to me.

The construction students have been informed that they will have to finish their degree at the Galway campus. The commitment to run the entire degree in Mayo means nothing, apparently.

Mr. Barry, the president of GMIT, seems to think this is a 'storm in a teacup', and his arrogance is quite frankly sickening. The board is made up entirely of Galway members, our student union and staff of Mayo campus are informing the student body of nothing. We are having to rely on other sources for our information, and the 'action group' also is entirely Galway-based.

Several meetings have taken place, which the students were not informed about, and both Enda Kenny and Micheál Martin have visited the college, again without any announcement to students.

Last Tuesday there were meetings being held throughout the day and again the students heard about this through the grapevine since no official information was given. The timing is very strategic since students are in the middle of exams and due to finish for the summer - the plan, no doubt, to have the death notice of GMIT announced during the summer break.

Meanwhile, the funding crisis continues, and I for one would like a full investigation into exactly how funding is being allocated since, again through unnamed sources, it has come to light that the Galway campus spend around €300,000 on football pitch rental per year, whilst the creative practice module for social care students in Mayo campus recieves just €50 for 70-plus students. The building itself is crumbling, with plaster falling off the walls and a leaking roof.

It seems that the closure of the Mayo campus has been decided and the students and people of Mayo have been completely ignored by Galway and most of our elected politicians, with the exception of Lisa Chambers, who has at least attempted to bring this into the public domain. Even though I have no time for either FG or FF, I do give Lisa full credit for fighting for the people of Mayo.

When the Mayo campus closes, many thousands of Mayo people will be denied the chance of third-level education in a county which has already suffered more than its fair share of cutbacks and loss of services.

The announcement last week of the withdrawal of the Westport bus route is just another nail in the coffin of rural Ireland, and a body of elected representatives who seem to have little or no interest in the people who elected them, and in the case of the Mayo campus, a student union who seems to think their role is to arrange the social calendar.

Yours,

Julie Currie.