‘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.

“It’s an absolute disgrace. We hear there’s more than €100m sitting there unspent and we’re waiting more than two years just to get a design team,” principal Michael O’Connor said.

In September 2007, the department advertised for a design team to prepare a planning application for the school, estimated to cost around €3m, but nobody was appointed when building funds for 2008 were targeted at developing areas of the country in need of new schools and extensions.

“We’re being told there’s no money, but even if we got a design team and started the planning process, we could be ready to start building when there’s more money available,” Mr O’Connor said.

“With the €100m or more that hasn’t been spent, they could build nearly 50 schools or extensions like ours. Every parish in the country has parents who are unemployed and looking for work in construction and trades,” he said.

The Joint Managerial Body (JMB) which represents almost 400 second level schools said places like St Brendan’s College in Bray, Co Wicklow, are hugely frustrated at the news of major underspending.

“It has waited over seven years for a new school building but the project has stalled at pre-tender stage with no word at all of a possible timeframe for the building to proceed,” said JMB general secretary Ferdia Kelly.

“The requirement for this development has become even more acute lately with large-scale housing development in the Shankill and Bray areas,” he said.