A Chara, - Charging primary schools for water is the latest manifestation of bureaucratic lunacy. Primary schools are now being classed as "businesses" so they can be charged water rates.
Yet schools neither manufacture nor sell goods or services for profit, nor can they register for VAT. Incredibly, schools are the latest soft targets for "stealth taxes", despite having continually to raise money to make up for systematic Government under-funding of day-to-day running costs.
When a child attends primary school the principal and teachers are acting in loco parentis. So why is the glass of water that a child drinks free of charge at home, but comes at a cost while at school? Will we soon see the day where children will carry bottles of water to school, just like their grandparents carried sods of turf for the fire?
- Is mise,
SEÁN COTTRELL, Director, Irish Primary Principals' Network, Glounthaune, Co Cork.