Plans to co-locate schools in Cork town as search for site continues

The plan is for the Le Chéile Secondary School to be temporarily placed on a grassed area behind main playing pitch of Ballincollig Community School

In 2020, the department announced Le Chéile Trust as the patron of the new 1,000-pupil co-ed secondary school in Ballincollig but it has yet to secure a permanent site for the school.

A secondary school which opened in temporary accommodation last year may be co-located on the grounds of another secondary school in the same town while the search for its permanent home goes on.

The Department of Education has drawn up plans to relocate the Le Chéile Secondary School, which opened last September in the former Cork Film Centre premises in Ballincollig, Cork, to the campus of Ballincollig Community School (BCS).

The department, which owns the BCS land, said it is “engaging with the trustees” of BCS on a proposal to deliver modular accommodation for Le Chéile on a grassed area behind the school’s main playing pitch in time for the 2022/23 academic year.

The proposal, which will not affect the BCS playing pitch, includes the provision for special education needs (SEN) classrooms for Le Chéile. But separately, the department said it’s also engaging with the BCS trustees to provide SEN facilities for BCS as well.

Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North West, Aindreas Moynihan, who has been working on the Le Chéile school issue for some time, welcomed the progress but said: “Any provision of temporary accommodation can’t take the focus away from the need to deliver a permanent location for this school.” 

He said he also expects that answers to his latest parliamentary questions on the issue, which should be addressed in the Dáil on Tuesday, to provide more detail on the proposals.

Neither BCS nor Le Chéile were available for comment last night. However, in an email to parents, BCS said they were only informed last Thursday by the Trustees - the Diocese of Cork and Ross and the Cork Education and Training Board - that a decision had been taken by the department to locate Le Chéile on BCS grounds.

Parents have been told that the BCS board is now engaging with the department to establish the detail of the proposal and to ensure that the education of students at BCS is not impacted.

The department, which is still working to secure a permanent site for Le Chéile, sought temporary planning permission from Cork City Council last year to locate two double-storey prefabs on a portion of Ballincollig GAA club’s main car park for a period of no longer than five years.

But council planners shot the plan down. They said the proposed development would constitute “over-development” of the site, that it was considered to be “overly excessive in scale” for a temporary school development, and it was ad hoc in terms of its site layout.

They also said the lack of provision of open space and amenities normally associated with the provision of a school facility of this scale was of concern, and they said the reduction in GAA club parking would lead to parking on the adjoining public road which would endanger public safety by reason of traffic hazard and obstruction of road users.

In 2020, the department announced Le Chéile Trust as the patron of the new 1,000-pupil co-ed secondary school in Ballincollig but it has yet to secure a permanent site for the school.

The department has also yet to secure a permanent site for Gaelscoil An Chaisleáin which has been based in temporary accommodation on the grounds of the town’s rugby club since 2017.