{"id":178923,"date":"2025-11-13T18:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/178923\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T18:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T18:38:12","slug":"concerned-parents-force-cancellation-of-paul-givan-school-visit-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/178923\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerned parents force cancellation of Paul Givan school visit \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A planned visit by DUP minister Paul Givan<\/a> to a Co Down school this week was cancelled following pressure by parents.<\/p>\n

The Irish News understands that the board of governors at St Francis\u2019 Primary School, Dromaroad decided to call off Wednesday\u2019s ministerial visit at the last minute after a number of pupils\u2019 parents objected.<\/p>\n

The objections are believed to have related to Mr Givan\u2019s recent trip to Israel.<\/p>\n

Pro-Palestinian protesters<\/a> picketed the gates of the rural school ahead of Mr Givan\u2019s planned arrival.<\/p>\n

\"Co<\/a>\"No<\/a><\/p>\n

However, they were informed by a member of the school\u2019s board of governors that the visit had been cancelled.<\/p>\n

The Department of Education<\/a> was asked on Wednesday to confirm the visit\u2019s cancellation but has yet to respond. When contacted, the school said \u201cno comment\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last month, the DUP minister joined party colleagues and other unionist politicians on a six-day \u201cfact-finding mission\u201d<\/a> which was paid for by the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

\"pg\"A pro-Palestinian protest outside St Francis’ Primary School Dromaroad ahead of a planned visit by the education minister <\/p>\n

Since the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East following the October 2023 attacks by Hamas, Israel has faced accusations of genocide and war crimes.<\/p>\n

Mr Givan has faced calls to resign over his use of departmental resources to promote a visit to a school in illegally-occupied East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

On Monday in the assembly a majority of MLAs backed a motion of no confidence in the minister, however, its failure to gain cross-community support meant the motion fell.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Department of Education permanent secretary Ronnie Armour revealed that the minister had received a fresh invitation to visit Israel in the new year. <\/p>\n

In a statement posted on social media following the minister\u2019s cancelled school visit, the coalition of pro-Palestinian groups, which included Mourne for Palestine, Mothers Against Genocide, Friends of Palestine Downpatrick and Castlewellan for Palestine, accused the minister of \u201cconducting a PR campaign with Israeli politicians\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravelling to illegally occupied Palestine during a genocide is evidence of gross misconduct and abuse of powers,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEngaging with war criminals ensures complicity particularly due to his position of power in the north of Ireland as minister for education.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A planned visit by DUP minister Paul Givan to a Co Down school this week was cancelled following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,31651,2597,13,14,6,71,11,12,15,16,5,91896,13267,93932,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-178923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-co-down","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-paul-givan","22":"tag-school","23":"tag-stormont","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115543848574521104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}