Inflammatory Attacks

IT'S EVERY PRINCIPAL'S nightmare: you arrive at the school on Monday morning, only to find the windows smashed, books scattered everywhere and broken beer bottles underfoot.

If you're really unlucky, your unwanted visitors will have tried to set fire to the school. The extent of the damage will depend on the efficiency of your sprinkler system (if you have one), the vigilance of the local community or the time it takes the fire brigade to arrive.

Vandalism and its most extreme manifestation, arson, pose huge problems for the managers and principals who run Irish schools - and inflict a considerable financial headache on the Department of Education, which funds them.

Yet it's a problem that dares not speak its name. Principals and other teachers are generally fearful of condemning the culprits locally, or speaking to the media on the subject. To do so is only to invite possible further attacks, or bad publicity, they feel.

"I wouldn't give the bunch who break my windows the publicity, says one principal - "at least, not until I catch them red handed."

The Department says it doesn't keep records of attacks on school property. These are a matter for the individual schools and their insurers.

Replying to questions in the Dail, the Minister for Education has said that security in schools must have regard for their wide diversity of size, accommodation and location.

"In practical terms, therefore, individual school authorities are best placed to assess the detail of their own security," Niamh Bhreathnach concluded earlier this year.

Schools are easy targets for the vandals. Virtually all of them are unoccupied overnight and at weekends. Their grounds are a natural magnet for cider parties and other groups. Moreover, most boards of management have enough difficulty meeting regular running costs without having to shell out more money on expensive security measures.

For young people, too, schools are a natural focus. Many though not all attend, or used to attend, the school they choose to vandalise. They generally don't start the evening with the intention of serious wrongdoing, but, under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, a grievance against a school or a teacher can be "redressed" in an act of appalling destruction.

VANDALISM IS most prevalent in disadvantaged areas, but the problem frequently spills over elsewhere. Only last month, car thieves rammed the entrance of a Blackrock, Co Dublin, school, before setting the car on fire. The blaze caused extensive damage to the entrance of the school.

Two years ago, the national school in Clara, Co Offaly hardly a hotbed of teen unruliness suffered its second fire in 18 months. Gardai blamed the fire on arsonists and put the cost of the damage at £10,000.

The Clara fire was typical in that it was discovered early on a Saturday morning. Principals say the weekends are the worst time for acts of vandalism - with the deadly combination of empty schools and a peak time for youthful excesses.

Many principals are accustomed now to coming in early on Monday mornings to make their schools "respectable" before staff and students arrive. "It's a weekly round of clearing up cider flagons and used condoms, and washing the traces of urination off the walls," says one principal of a national school in south Dublin.

The level of vandalism also seems to rise at the end of the holidays, as the return to school approachs, and around Hallowe'en time.

In the North, the problem is exacerbated by inter community tensions. Last July, the North's education minister, Michael Ancram, was moved to condemn the "wanton destruction" in sectarian arson attacks on schools, after £3 million pounds worth of damage was caused in a single week.

Because schools are usually unoccupied when subjected to attack, the human cost of school arson is fortunately very low. The tragic exception to this in recent years was the death of an elderly nun who died from smoke inhalation following an attack on a primary school in Dublin's Whitefriar Street.

That fire was started one afternoon in May 1995 using a container of petrol. The culprit, who was drunk at the time of the attack, was a local odd jobs man who was aggrieved over the payment he had received for a painting job.

FOR SOME SCHOOLS, the consequences of an arson attack are greater than for others. Consider the following chain of events. The South City multi denominational school was based in part of a Church of Ireland school in Crumlin, Dublin, until this was destroyed in an arson attack in 1993. The attack was blamed on a local gang of teenagers, but no one was ever charged.

The school found it difficult to find alternative premises, so the 110 pupils spent five weeks at home. Eventually, there were housed in temporary premises at Stewart's Hospital in Palmerstown, five miles from Crumlin.

The school and most of its students then relocated to Rathfarnham, while a smaller group of the parents set up the Crumlin multi denominational school. This school's woes are not over, as it currently faces eviction from yet another temporary premises in Kilmainham.

Although the Department does not generally involve itself in security initiatives, it did support a special pilot security project which started in Finglas, in Dublin, in 1993-94. The project, which was extended into succeeding years, was a response to a high level of vandalism affecting certain schools in East Finglas.

The scheme followed failed attempts to combat the vandals, who broke up to 120 windows in one school in a night. In another school, the bill for broken glass came to £1,000 a week.

However, the increased security did not come cheap. It cost £40,000 to employ a security firm to patrol nine schools in the area over the year. The Department says it wants to evaluate the outcome of the Finglas pilot scheme before deciding on the introduction of schemes in other areas.

Thus, schools are caught in a bind. If they skimp on security, they run the risk of being attacked by vandals. Quite apart from the hardship this causes for those involved in cleaning up, the attacks tend to lead to increased insurance bills.

But if they do decide that security precautions have to be put in place, principals have to source substantial additional funds for this purpose. Disadvantaged schools get a higher capitation grant for pupils, but are loathe to divert badly needed funds to purchase steel fences and security cameras.