Dilapidated school may get temporary dwellings

A LIMERICK school is set to be offered temporary accommodation because of the rundown conditions in their 30-year-old building.

After a visit from local junior minister Willie O’Dea yesterday morning, Department of Education building officials will inspect the

awful facilities at St Kieran’s Boys National School in Galvone next week.

It is hoped that alternative accommodation will be found nearby to allow the 135 pupils attend school in better conditions.

The building has a leaking roof and leaking sewerage pipes, subsiding floors and countless other problems.

School principal Kevin Haugh said he was grateful for Mr O’Dea’s intervention and is confident the school will be in different premises before the start of the next school year. “We have put a proposal for alternative accommodation locally because we are advised by architects that this site is no longer suitable,” Mr Haugh said.

“The Department of Education has poured money into the school but we will continue to have problems regardless,” he said.

The school’s insurance company told him this week that they might not be able to continue covering the building unless immediate repairs were carried out.

Mr O’Dea confirmed that different accommodation was one of the options being looked at.

“If there was a scale of bad school buildings, this would be one of the worst in the country,” he said after visiting St Kieran’s.

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) said almost 40 schools were inspected last year, many of them after complaints from staff or unions.