The new school year should bring a fresh start. New teachers, new classmates, new ambitions. Instead, thousands of children across the North are returning to the same crumbling buildings.
Why? Apparently, there is no money for repairs.
Stormont’s Department of Education has decided to scrap thousands of outstanding minor works applications. These are not luxuries, but include basic repairs to roofs, pipes and other parts of school facilities. More than 6,100 applications were submitted in the last call for minor works in 2017.
St Eugene’s Primary is one such example, where the lack of action of these “minor” works resulted in its partial closure in October 2024 due to an unsafe roof, and is expected to remain closed until May 2027. Out of these applications, only 550 were initially addressed before the programme was effectively abandoned because of “budgetary pressures”.
Nine years later, the solution is simple: throw the applications in the bin!
But don’t worry, Stormont has other priorities.
MLAs are set for a pay rise of more than £2,000 next year, taking their basic salary to £69,216 – nearly double that of the median worker in the North, who takes home £37,100. This follows an existing increase of nearly £14,000 for MLAs earlier in the year.
This latest increase is still subject to consultation. But where was this consultation when schools were left waiting for repairs? Where was it when services were cut and workers were told to tighten their belts?
Despite the outrage, this is not simply a case of greedy politicians lining their own pockets – although there are surely some giddy at the affair.
Michelle O’Neill, when questioned, replied that this “should not have happened.” But there is a more fundamental question at root: why is there never enough money for the things workers need?
Well, to put it simply, Stormont is facing a massive financial crisis. Westminster, facing its own crisis, is pushing austerity from above. The Executive is simply left to decide where the axe will fall.
Sinn Féin and the other parties can complain about the funding settlement, but once they take responsibility for running Stormont, they are compelled to operate within the same limits.
And so, the bill comes down the table landing at the plate of the working class. We are all sharing the receipt for a meal we have not even eaten! And so, schools continue to crumble, rates continue to rise, and waiting lists continue to grow.
The establishment parties tell us that if we elect the right people, they can manage things a little better. But no politician sitting at the head of Stormont can escape the fundamental laws of capitalism.
But the wealth for change does exist. Workers produce it every day but it is concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority and subordinated to profit. There is but one solution—to bring the banks and major monopolies into public ownership under workers’ control.
To use the wealth of society to build and repair schools, hospitals and homes. To plan production according to what people need, and not what produces a profit. As long as this system exists, the rich will get richer while we send our children to study in crumbling schools.
