*Reuben Liddy, Sally-Anne Hayes, Jane Kelleher, Declan Ross and Senator Roisin Garvey. Photograph: Joe Buckley
THOUSANDS of teenagers across Ireland and hundreds in Shannon are trying to do the right thing when it comes to the environment, a Clare Senator has outlined.
St Patrick’s Comprehensive School in Shannon was recently awarded a green flag for energy. The energy flag looks at the steps which can be taken to reduce energy consumption and raise awareness of climate change issues.
It is the second green flag secured by the Shannon school. In 2019, two teachers, Sally-Anne Hayes and Jane Kelleher set up the Green Schools Committee in The Comp.
Declan Ross is one member of their Green Schools Committee. He told The Clare Echo, “working to earn the flag, was a target to work harder and in a more environmentally friendly way in the school and the community. We planned initiatives like the Switch it Off campaign and the Zero Waste campaign to cut back on energy and waste produced in the school. We worked hard on reducing our energy consumption and waste in the school and the work paid off”.
Support and encouragement from teachers was acknowledged by Declan. The committee is now targeting getting their hands on a third flag which is for water conservation. “We have already done a survey of Shannon to check the water quality and any damage happening there. We also have several other plans in the works as of right now that we hope to implement soon. There are so many opportunities to improve what we do and how we use our resources,” he said.
Senator Roisin Garvey was at the school to raise the Green Flag. She told students, “I hope you are very proud of yourselves, up in the Government we need to listen more to young people because you are way ahead of the game, we were once young but we have forgotten what it is like so it is good to have people like ye to remind us how much ye care and how we can support ye to have a good planet to live on. We’ve been working hard on a Carbon Plan where we will be getting every sector to reduce their carbon emissions, it’s always been left for the environmental section to tick the green boxes but from this year on we’ll be asking the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Finance, every single Department across the country will have to look at their carbon emissions and reduce them”.
“Green Schools is the most successful environmental movement in the whole country, we started with two schools twenty years ago and now we have 3,700 schools taking part in the Green Schools programme, whether it is saving electricity or saving water or cycling to school which is awesome, together you are making a huge difference. There are 700 students in this school, the staff can say all they want but if the pupils take action ye can make a much bigger impact in reducing your environmental footprint. I always think it is good to be hopeful about things, I still think we can turn it around,” the Inagh woman outlined.
Garvey said she was already looking forward to returning to The Comp to raise their third Green Flag. “I was a teacher and then I worked in Green Schools, I thought that the programme was brilliant but it needed more support so the first thing when I got elected was to get more funding for more staff to help with schools to get funding for things like solar panels, we’re trying to get all the Government parties and not just the Green Party to care about this, it’s not just up to a few of us. Each grain of sand is quite boring on its own but together it makes a beautiful beach, if we can bring everyone on board we can make a huge difference”.
She concluded, “There are thousands of teenagers all over Ireland together that are bothering to turn off the right switch, they are putting things in the right bin and hopping on the bike, all these things add up and make a huge difference, you are part of something positive affecting change”.
