Fivemiletown: Conflict of interest complaint over school closure

St Mary's Primary School in Fivemiletown is earmarked for closure due to low pupil numbers

It was "inappropriate" for an education official to sit on two separate committees which decided to close a County Tyrone school.

That is according to Bishop Donal McKeown, the chair of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS).

He made the comments in a letter to governors of St Mary's Primary School in Fivemiletown.

The governors have now called for CCMS to withdraw what they call a "misguided proposal to close a thriving school".

St Mary's was earmarked for closure by the CCMS and the Education Authority (EA) in February 2023.

The CCMS had said that the school was not sustainable due to low pupil numbers.

But in his letter Bishop McKeown said the CCMS had looked into a complaint of a "conflict of interest" as an official had sat on both the CCMS committee which proposed the school closure and the EA committee which subsequently voted to close it.

Sinn Fein's deputy leader Michelle O'Neill (centre) has joined the campaign to keep the school open

Bishop McKeown said that Patricia Carville's membership of both "should have been declared at each meeting of the EA and CCMS committees which Ms Carville attended".

"We further consider that it is inappropriate to hold dual membership of both committees," his letter said.

BBC News NI contacted the EA for a response to Bishop McKeown's comments and also to ask if Ms Carville also wanted to make a response through the EA.

In a statement, an EA spokesperson said: "It would not be appropriate for the EA to comment at this time due to ongoing legal proceedings challenging Development Proposal 694, proposing the closure of St Mary's Primary School, Fivemiletown."

There is also a separate, ongoing legal challenge into the decision to close the school.

Decision pass by one vote

The decision to close St Mary's was taken at a meeting of the EA's Strategic Planning and Policy Committee on 31 January this year.

Seven members of the committee voting against the plan, while eight members voted for the closure.

According to the published minutes of the meeting Mrs Carville seconded the closure.

But she was also a member of the CCMS Education Provision Committee which had initially proposed closing St Mary's.

Mairaid Kelly says the plan to close the school is "misguided"

As well as calling that dual membership "inappropriate" Bishop McKeown said that the CCMS "now intends to reconvene the Education Provision Committee to consider the impacted decision again".

When contacted by BBC News NI, the CCMS said it had "no further comment to make on these matters as this Development Proposal is currently subject to legal proceedings."

'Public confidence at all time low'

But in a statement to BBC News NI the chair of governors of St Mary's Mairaid Kelly called on the CCMS to abandon its plan to close the school.

"Our small community has spent months trying to engage with an organisation which has repeatedly shown itself to be impervious to influence, and which now must recognise that public confidence in it is at an all-time low," she said.

"It is beyond time that they withdrew this misguided proposal to close a thriving school and began to focus on making reparations for the damage they have caused.

"Despite the many ways in which CCMS has tried to undermine us, our enrolment has continued to grow, almost doubling from our lowest point when this process started, showing the undeniable increasing demand for accessible school places in small rural areas."

"We are so grateful to the local community for sticking with us throughout this incredibly difficult time, and for stepping up to show that support in so many ways during recent months."