Moves in Cork to end use of schools as polling stations due to disruption caused to families

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

Cork County Council is to write to the County Sheriff's Office requesting that alternative venues be considered for election polling stations to avoid the educational disruption caused by using primary schools.

The letter is in response to a motion brought before this week’s meeting of the council by a North Cork councillor who pointed out that of the 225 polling stations used in County Cork’s 10 electoral areas during the 2024 local elections, 149 or two-thirds of them were based in schools.

“So that's 65pc of the entire electorate going to a school to vote. And we all know the impact that that has on parents, on the school community, and on areas. If the school is closed, it has an impact on the child's education, it has an impact on childcare. Schools being closed impacts lots of people,” Cllr Aileen Browne said.

The councillor said that in her own electoral area of Kanturk, 22 of the 23 polling stations used in 2024 were in schools. In Macroom the figure was 80pc, followed by Carrigaline and Cobh where around three-quarters of polling stations were school-based. “And even in the areas that have a lower percentage of schools being used, like Mallow, Bantry and Midleton, roughly half of all polling stations are still based in schools,” she said.

Cllr Browne suggested that community centres could be used to host polling stations, which would also give them a chance to showcase their facilities to the local community. With no elections scheduled for the next few years, she said “now is the time to start thinking about the location of our polling stations, to actually start looking at alternative venues to see if they will be suitable for polling stations.”

Cllr Una McCarthy supported the motion and pointed out that there were three polling days in 2024. “Interrupting the education of primary school children should be avoided where possible. We all know that it causes inconvenience to parents. Maybe the students are delighted with it but the parents certainly aren't because they often have to take time off work to look after the children who are out of school,” she said.

Cllr Danny Collins also voiced his support. “There are a lot of community centres out there. I know one in Rooska, Gortalassa Hall, where they lost their polling station a number of years back. It was an old school before, it's a community centre now, they hold different events there, that extra funding that would come from voting would help them a lot,” the West Cork councillor said.