One of south Dublin's best-known girls secondary schools, St Anne's at Milltown, is to close. A meeting of parents was told of the decision by the school's trustees, the Religious Sisters of Charity, on Thursday night, and the students were told yesterday morning.
Sister Marie Carroll said: "We can no longer offer our students a full range of subject options and as numbers continue to decline, we will become more and more limited in the range of subjects we can offer."
She said they were not closing the school "because we want to sell it, but because the situation in the school is critical and we had to look at whether children would be coming in next September, and what would happen in two, three, four or five years". She said there had been no decision on the closure date.
Student numbers at St Anne's have fallen steadily since the decision was taken in 1994 to close the primary school on a phased basis. Last year the senior school had 342 students and 24 staff; this year it has 285 students and 22 staff and next year expects a maximum of 264 students and 19 staff.