A dispute has developed between a group of Sligo residents and the Catholic Church over a plan to sell off the contents of a former secondary school.
The Beneda Abbey Development Committee in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, has said they are "dismayed and annoyed" at the placing of an advertisement by the diocese of Achonry in a national newspaper last Saturday offering for sale school furniture and equipment.
Computers, tables, chairs, filing cabinets, woodwork benches and electric cookers are among the items in the 63 lots for sale. A selection of religious statues are also included.
In a statement, the St Beneda Abbey Development Committee strongly questions the ownership of many of the items listed.
The committee claims some of the items were "partially or fully financed by various fund-raising ventures over the years by the local community".
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One's Liveline programme yesterday, the principal of the school which closed last year, Mr Michael Collins, said up to £6,000 had been raised locally to equip a Home Economics room at the school, which included eight electric cookers now offered for sale by the diocese. In their statement the Beneda Abbey Development Committee said "this is another episode in the long-running saga about the former secondary school/convent".
The committee attempted to negotiate with Bishop Thomas Flynn about the property's future use, "including the Beneda Abbey Community Hall for which €350,000 was raised locally".
They were repaying loans for the refurbishment of the hall at the rate of €1,000 a month, they said, yet "there is no guarantee as to its (hall's) future."
Currently the committee leases the hall from the diocese for a nominal sum, though Bishop Flynn has said a commercial rent may be levied from October.
"It is with regret this democratically elected committee has to bring this matter into the public domain despite exhaustive attempts to settle these issues with Bishop Flynn," the committee statement concluded.
Interviewed in the current issue of the Sligo Champion newspaper, Bishop Flynn said there was no question but that the property involved belonged to the diocese, including the hall.
He said no commitment could be made where the future of the hall was concerned.
"There is a site that could be a valuable site if we get the right customer." he said. "If that customer is in a position to provide employment for local people, I would be all for that."
But he was adamant that the hall belonged to the diocese. "There is no question about that," he said, adding that the hall committee had recognised that the diocese had leased it to the committee, and the committee had signed the lease.
He also said the committee was aware the hall was on lease when they collected and spent the money they had raised to refurbish the hall.
Mr Austin Walshe, spokesman for the committee, told the newspaper they had signed the lease with the diocese for the purpose of drawing down grant-funding for the hall.