Planning application for permanent home for Douglas Educate Together

By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent

A planning application has been lodged to provide a permanent home for a second-level school serving Cork’s southern suburbs.

Educate Together has been operating its first multi-denominational second-level school outside the greater Dublin area in temporary accommodation at two different educational facilities since autumn 2016.

The plans recently lodged with Cork County Council seek permission for a three-storey school off the Carrigaline Road in Douglas. It would cater for 600 students, according to the application on behalf of Education Minister Richard Bruton.

The multi-denominational school spent its first two years at Nagle Community College in the suburb of Mahon under a temporary deal with Cork Education and Training Board.

It registered its first 45 students in September 2016, with 120 on the roll books last year and numbers rising each year as new first-year classes enrol. The school re-opened this term at the Griffith College campus on Wellington Rd on the city’s northside under an arrangement for two years, with staff and students hopeful of a permanent home being completed in the meantime.

The Department of Education plans are for a 10-acre field near the Fingerpost roundabout, a few hundred metres from the busy Douglas village.

The application says the facilities will include more than 70 parking spaces and storage for 150 bicycles. A PE hall and ball court are also planned, as well as a secure special play area.

The opening of four new Educate Together second-level schools this autumn brings the total number nationally to 13, and there is also a campaign for it to have another second-level school to be located in Cork city centre.