Mountrath Community School has launched a petition calling for public lighting to be installed outside the school.
Since Mountrath CS opened its doors in September 2009 the public lighting outside of the school has yet to be commissioned, despite numerous efforts and representations
The school say there have been a number of accidents at the front of the school in the past eight years, all which may have been prevented if better lighting was provided.
The Mountrath CS 2nd year CSPE class are currently carrying out a petition in order to raise awareness and seek support on this issue.
The petition has already received over 700 signatures and is continuing to gather pace.
There are funds now available to address this issue through the department of the arts, heritage, regional, rural and Gaeltacht affairs with the launch of the Clár programme.
Minister of State for Regional Economic Development, Michael Ring TD, announced on the March 31 details of the CLÁR programme for 2017.
CLÁR provides funding for small scale capital projects in rural areas that have experienced significant levels of depopulation.
The programme, which has a budget of €5 million this year, forms part of the Government’s Action Plan for Rural Development which was launched in January 2017.
The Clár programme contains four measures and Measure 1 is the support for schools and community safety measures.
The school believes that they falls under this category and that the commissioning of public lighting at the school is therefore a priority under health and safety grounds.
They are asking for the public to get behind their campaign and have launched an online petition.
This petition has already been signed by Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley and Fianna Fail’s Seán Fleming.
Anyone wishing to get behind Mountrath Community School’s petition can do so here.
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