€12k bill for prefabs as plans stalled

TAXPAYERS are forking out €12,300 a month for prefabs at a school since last January, when work was to have begun on a refurbishment programme.

But the 400 pupils and 20 teaching staff have not seen any work taking place at St Brigid’s Girl’s National School in the Dublin suburb of Palmerstown since then because of delays in funding from the Department of Education.

Conditions inside the 50-year-old school building are so bad, however, that principal Noeleen Conboy decided to move half of the classes into the prefabs anyway last April after the heating system broke down.

They are now facing into another cold winter with a barely patched-up oil heating system, a leaking roof, mouldy ceilings and floors, and an outdated electrical system.

“Things are so bad that the fuses can’t handle the capacity if we plug in electrical heaters instead of turning on the heating. We’re not sure the boiler will last the winter, the tank and controls are in an underground storage that gets flooded most winters,” said Ms Conboy.

The school had been hopeful that work would begin after the next building announcement by Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe. But anger was voiced last night at a public meeting organised by the parents association about the latest delay to the project, which has already had €750,000 spent on it.

“It’s so frustrating that they’ve been so close to starting the building work and it feels like this has been snatched away from us at the eleventh hour.

“We just want to make sure our children have the best school environment possible,” said Fiona Ebbs, a parent at the school.

Noreen Flynn, a local member of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation executive, told the meeting it is wrong that so many schools would be a fitting setting for a Dickens novel and that elected politicians are doing nothing about it.

“Substandard school buildings like this are a political issue, an educational issue and a health and safety issue.

“No minister would be expected to work in conditions like this and no child should have to put up with them either.”