Kenneth Flood: Lollipop Ladies and Gents Needed

Louth County Council had a recruitment campaign for School Wardens in June 2017 for which no applications were received from the Drogheda area. This has lead to a shortage of school wardens in Drogheda for various reasons.

Cllr Flood said ” I was contacted by a parent regarding the loss of the Lollipop Lady at  St Mary’s Parish Primary School Bryanstown, Drogheda, who was very concerned that there wasn’t a replacement available soon. I contacted the council to raise this issue and I was assured that there was plans in place for a replacement and that other measures were being taken to handle matters in the short term.

Louth County Council were informed by the School Warden at St Mary’s Parish Primary School that that person would be leaving at the end of September. In addition one of their other Wardens at another location is off due to a serious long term injury.Because no one came forward in the June Recruitment Campaign, this meant there was no immediate replacement for that school. How-ever Louth County Council’s technician has been to visit the school last week and it was agreed to install a ramp at the school gates at one of the warden’s is locations to slow down those vehicles entering and leaving the school. The councils relief warden will be based at the school during periods when she is not required elsewhere, at the location previously occupied by the warden who left last week. When she is unavailable the warden who is at the school gate has agreed to cover this position as it has been identified as the busiest of the 2 crossings as it is on a main road. The School principal will also be reinforcing the road safety message to all pupils in the school.

I have been informed by Louth County Councils HR department that the new campaign will be advertised in the Drogheda Independent on Tuesday 10th October with a closing date for applications of Wednesday 25th October 2017 at 5pm. These vacancies will also be advertised on www.louthcoco.ie/vacancies and @LouthCoCo on Twitter from Tuesday 10th October. For anyone who doesn’t have access to Social media or newspapers, they can telephone or call into Customer Services in Fair Street for an application form.

It is vital that Drogheda has its full compliment of School Wardens and I would urge anyone that might consider this to please put themselves forward.