Five school buildings currently lie empty in county Fermanagh, as falling school enrolments result in an increased trend of school closures and amalgamations.

Some school management committees are understood to be having difficulty selling the properties to generate the funds needed to pay back grant money owed to the Department of Education.

One local priest has described the department’s valuation of empty school buildings as “crazy.”

The empty school buildings are: St. Eugene’s College, Rosslea, which closed in 2017; St. Eugene’s Primary School, Knocks, which closed in 2013; Lisnaskea High School, which closed in 2013; Corranny Primary School, which closed in 2012 and the Duke of Westminster High School, Ballinamallard, which closed in 2004.

When a voluntary or grant maintained school closes, the Department of Education is entitled to claw back a portion of the grants paid while the school was operational.

A departmental spokeswoman told The Impartial Reporter: “The amount to be repaid is impacted by a number of factors including the valuation of the property at the date of closure, the date grants were paid to the trustees and the percentage rate at which the grants were paid. In many cases the trustees will sell the property on the open market to fund the claw back requested.”

In the Catholic maintained sector, the Catholic Church Trustees own the schools, therefore they are responsible for generating the claw back and finding a new purpose for the defunct school buildings. 

In the Controlled sector – which is 66 per cent Protestant – if a school closes, the Education Authority (EA) will first consider if it has any further use for the premises. Once the EA confirms that the property is surplus to requirements, the department will determine whether there is any other educational use for it. If none is found, the EA will commence the formal disposal process, in line with Land and Property Service guidelines.

The closure of Lisnaskea High School caused uproar in 2013. It was used by the EA as a youth centre but that service is set to move to a new young adult resource centre which is scheduled to be built at the old Lisnaskea Library this year.

Two years after the school’s closure, the then Education Minister John O’Dowd announced that he had agreed to release a portion of the site to Bunscoil an Traonaigh, the Irish language primary school in Lisnaskea. He also revealed that South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEEF) had expressed an interest and would have the opportunity to acquire the remainder of the site. At the time, SEEF Chairman Eric Brown welcomed the public confirmation from the department of “its support for our vision and the community’s desire to breathe new life into that site.”

An EA spokeswoman confirmed: “The Education Authority is currently in the process of disposing of the former Lisnaskea High School site.”
The Impartial Reporter understands that Lisnaskea Health Centre is interested in moving to the site.

The Ballinamallard Duke of Westminster site was sold by the former Western Education and Library Board in December 2011. Planning permission for 30 housing units was granted to BlueBuild Developments, Newtownards in September 2015. The Director of BlueBuild Developments is Ewan Melvin. A local building contractor said this week that he is not contracted to the site.

The Kesh Duke of Westminster site is now home to a Council recycling facility and part of the site is to be used in the North Fermanagh Valley Park project – an initiative led by Ederney Community Development Trust, with Kesh Community Development Association and Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, aimed at linking Ederney and Kesh through recreation and sport.

Cornagague Primary School near Magheraveely and Corranny Primary School both closed in 2012. They were amalgamated into the new-build St. Macartan’s Primary School at Aghadrumsee.
Cornagague Primary School has since been knocked down and replaced with a modern house. 

Aghadrumsee Community Group has announced on facebook that is has agreed a 25 year lease with Clones Parish for Corranny Primary School, which it plans to use as a community hub.

The department has confirmed that the requested claw back of £30,000 has been received from the trustees of Cornagague Primary School.

The spokeswoman added: “The grant recovery cases at Corranny Primary School, St. Eugene’s Primary School, Knocks and the St. Eugene’s College, Rosslea remain open and therefore it would not be appropriate to provide estimated grant recovery figures at this stage as it may impact the sale of the properties.”

Selling the property on the open market is not an easy task, according the Canon Joseph Mullin, Trustee of St. Eugene’s Primary School, Knocks.
He said the amount of claw back being requested by the department is “a problem” and believes the department’s valuation of St. Eugene’s is “crazy” considering its rural location outside Lisnaskea.
“Empty buildings are a liability – they are a drain on money,” said Canon Mullin. “We are all trying to get the best for [the school building]. It would be my hope and dream that it will be used by a group in the community. It belongs to the parish, so you would be hoping the parish would benefit,” he commented.
The Lisnaskea priest is “labouring” under the claw back process at the moment and called on the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS) to “play a part.”
The Impartial Reporter contacted CCMS and Father John Chester in Rosslea but had not received a response at the time of going to press.