Teacher training college set for funding boost

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern is expected to make a multi-million euro funding announcement for Mary Immaculate Teacher Training College during a visit to Limerick today.

The Kelly Committee Report, published in September on future capital needs in the third-level sector, recommended that Mary Immaculate Teacher Training College should be approved for nearly €40 million to fund three new buildings on campus.

No buildings have been developed on the campus for nearly 30 years and many students attend lectures in old prefabs.

Plans have been drawn up for a physical education teaching hall estimated to cost €15.8 million, a 500-seat drama and arts education centre, which will cost €23.8m, and laboratories for the development of IT skills in student teachers. At a recent graduation ceremony, college president Peadar Cremin said that five years ago they had 1,800 students on a campus built for 750 students.

At the request of the Government, he said they have taken in extra students since 1999, bringing numbers up to 2,500. Dr Cremin told students several successive Ministers for Education had pledged funding for badly needed facilities.

The college received planning permission for a multi-purpose physical education training facility in August 2002.

However, a moratorium was placed on all new buildings in the third-level sector. “The rest of the third-level sector was subjected to the same moratorium, but unlike Mary Immaculate College, the rest of the third level sector had already benefited from decades of investment. Mary Immaculate has prefabs from the 1960s, prefabs from the 1970s, prefabs from the 1980s and from the ‘90s. There has been no new custom-built building at Mary Immaculate College since the 1970s,” said Dr Cremin.

If, as expected, the Taoiseach today announces Government approval for the three new development projects at the college, work could commence in 2005 and be completed in 2008.