‘Waiting more than two years just to get a design team’

A KERRY school community is fuming no progress has been made on its new building project for more than two-and-a-half years while €112 million of school construction cash is unspent this year.

St Brendan’s National School was told by the Department of Education a month before the 2007 general election it would shortly appoint a design team to the eight-classroom project. The situation at the 77-year-old school in Blennerville near Tralee was highlighted by the Irish Examiner in June last year, as most of the 157 pupils were still being taught in four tiny classrooms and the rest in two prefabs, while an adjoining site bought by the department for the new school in 2005 became overgrown with weeds.

The situation remains unchanged today – with €1,450 a month being paid for one of the prefabs – except there are now nine more pupils on the roll book than there were 16 months ago and the building work has made no progress.