Stalled Limerick school development leaves pupils stuck in prefabs
Labour Party councillor Elena Secas contrasted the progress made on St Paul's NS, which has long been completed, and Monaleen NS, above, which is still stuck in prefabs.
A “shovel-ready” building and refurbishment project for a school in Limerick has been left stalled while pupils wait in prefabs.
That’s according to Elena Secas, Labour councillor for Limerick City East, who has called for action on the expansion of Monaleen National School.
The school on the outskirts of Limerick city has close to 900 pupils. It is the largest in the county, and a significant portion of the school is made up of prefabs.
"The continued delay has had a huge impact on the whole school community,” she said. “People have lost all faith that this is ever going to happen. How come the project is stalled, while so much of the school is still in prefabs?"
Funding for the expansion of the school was first granted by Jan O’Sullivan, then Minister for Education, in 2015.
Initially, the project was planned to be delivered in two separate phases. Phase one would have included building eight new classrooms.
The second phase would have seen a refurbishment of the existing school building.
However, these plans were later scrapped in 2016, and in 2017 it was announced that the project was to be delivered under a single new build of a 32 classroom school to replace the existing building.
Phase one of the project was prepared “shovel-ready” and had been submitted to the Department of Education by the school.
“A political decision was taken to simply scrap it and deliver the project in one phase, to the dismay of the school which had put a lot of work and effort, time and taxpayers' money into phase one and into the original plan," said Ms Secas.
The project has been since devolved for delivery to the local Education and Training Board (ETB). The Monaleen school building project was initially to be delivered under the same timeframe as St Paul's National School, another large primary school in Dooradoyle, near Limerick city.
"The difference is that the St Paul's NS project proceeded as intended without interference and is long completed with the school community enjoying their new school, while Monaleen NS are still using prefabs," said Ms Secas. The ETB submitted plans to the Department for approval last November. Norma Foley, the Minister for Education, must approve these as a matter of urgency so that the project can proceed to statutory planning, she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Education said that a meeting has been scheduled for the first week of April. Once there is department approval, the next step will be to obtain statutory planning approvals.
At this stage, there is no timeline for the completion of the project.
