Delays to secondary school plan to continue

IT has been claimed that further delays in providing a new community school in Skibbereen, Co Cork, are inevitable after Education Minister Mary Hanafin announced that a suitable site hadn’t been located for the project.

Ms Hanafin said that a number of potential sites around the town had been examined by a team made up of representatives from her department, the Office of Public Works and Cork County Council.

However, she admitted that none of them had been deemed suitable to provide a new school which is to be designed to amalgamate St Fachtna’s De La Salle, Mercy Heights Secondary School and Rossa College. The schools currently have a combined student population of around 900.

Ms Hanafin said that despite the setback her department will continue to explore options and once a site has been secured the project will then be considered for inclusion in the School Building and Modernisation programme.

Fine Gael TD Jim O’Keeffe said the issue was of crucial importance to the future of Skibbereen and added that the failure to acquirean appropriate site would set the project back.

“It is almost 10 years since upgrade grants were refused to two of the schools on the grounds that the way forward was the amalgamation of the three existing post primary schools into a central school for the town and district,” said Mr O’Keeffe.

He said that after discussions all the stakeholders locally agreed that a new community school should be provided in Skibbereen and that it should be built on a green acre field site of 15 to 20 acres.

“The Department of Education commissioned the OPW to seek a suitable site and eight local sites were submitted for consideration. The pupils are entitled to modern facilities and the search for a suitable site must be renewed by the department,” the deputy said.

“It was a Fianna Fáil led Government that failed to implement the decision of the Rainbow government to establish a third Level campus in Skibbereen. It would be totally outrageous if they similarly failed to provide the required modern second level school in the town,” Mr O’Keeffe added.