Purpose-built wastewater treatment system installed to ensure Cork special school can open 

Last week, the EPA deemed the local sewage treatment plant to be 'biologically and hydraulically overloaded'

North Cork Community Special School in Carrignavar is due to open on August 27.

A purpose-built wastewater treatment system is being installed to ensure a new special school in Cork can open on schedule next week.

The Department of Education confirmed the measure is being put in place after Uisce Éireann declined to connect the school to the overloaded local sewerage system.

The North Cork Community Special School in Carrignavar is due to open on August 27. Concerns had been raised about the opening date after it emerged the local wastewater treatment plant was operating beyond capacity.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed the sewage treatment plant to be “biologically and hydraulically overloaded”. The Department of Education declined three times to confirm the school would open on time.

The EPA confirmed that it has an open compliance investigation into Uisce Éireann’s management of wastewater in Carrignavar.

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) has instigated separate legal proceedings against the utility for what it called “alleged deleterious discharges to the Cloghnagashee River” at the end of July.

The special school’s new premises is in a refurbished former primary school, and a key planning condition states it cannot be connected to the public wastewater network without prior approval from Uisce Éireann.

The school will cater for 36 children, aged between four and 18, who all have autism and mild or moderate learning difficulties.

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said it had taken “the prudent approach of installing a local wastewater management system on the school site”.

“This is currently being installed and will be operational before the school opens,” they said. “No wastewater will be discharged into the townland’s wastewater system until full agreement has been reached with Uisce Éireann.”

They added that the school will open next week as planned.

As one of five new special schools across Ireland announced in November 2024 for the 2025/26 school year, its opening in Carrignavar was postponed last September. The school instead began operating from temporary accommodation in Fermoy.

Carrignavar is about 16km from Cork City and, according to the 2022 census, has a population of 563.

Sewerage capacity has been a recurring issue in the village over the past decade.

In 2017, the then Irish Water’s annual environmental report said Carrignavar’s wastewater system was overloaded and its final effluent was non-compliant with its own emission limit values.

The system was branded “organically and hydraulically overloaded” by IFI in 2019, and in 2020, Irish Water received the benefit of the Probation Act following a prosecution by IFI for breaches of fisheries and water pollution legislation.

On July 27, the EPA inspected the Cloghnagashee river after it was notified of “a discoloured discharge”.

The Cloghnagashee is a spawning ground for pike, eel, and perch, and is a tributary of the Glashaboy river, which feeds the Glashaboy reservoir, serving the entire Glanmire area.