Holy Family School project hit by further delays

Seamus Enright

 

The principal of the Holy Family School in Cootehill has expressed her frustration at further delays in building a new school and warned that they may soon have to turn children with disabilities away.

Rachel Moynagh revealed this week that it had been hoped to move the school's 160 pupils and 50 staff to temporary accommodation during the Summer to facilitate the new build but now it appears that won't be happening and construction could be pushed out as far as early 2018 - 17 years after it was first raised in the Dáil.
'It just seems to be getting pushed out the whole time. Everybody we meet is asking us 'when's the new building going up?', and it is frustrating. It's terribly frustrating. You hear about other schools around getting extensions and new classrooms and we're still only talking about it,' Ms Moynagh told The Anglo-Celt.
Funding was secured in late 2015 for the new school, which caters for children and young people with severe and profound learning difficulties, moderate and multiple learning disabilities and-or autism, and it had been hoped that construction would begin in 2016. Included in the latest School Building Programme (2016-2021), the new building will be a new 26-classroom, two-storey school.
Once work commences, students and faculty will be decamped to prefabricated accommodation at a temporary site at the Cootehill Business Park at Cornacarrow.
Professional advisors to the school's Board of Management are currently preparing the Stage 2(b) detailed design, due for submission on April 19. That milestone is set to come less than a week before school representatives will meet local TDs to express disappointment at ongoing delays.

Taught in hallways

Currently the school is set across two sites including the White Star complex in Market Street; while in the main school, some students use a converted storage space as a classroom. Others, meanwhile, are taught in hallways.
There are concerns that, if the existing situation is to remain, then the Holy Family School may be forced to turn away or delay the admissions of new students come future terms. 'The classrooms have gotten so small now that we've gotten to a stage where we really can't accept many more children. Yet where do you turn them away to?,' asks Ms Moynagh.
The current Minister for Education, Richard Bruton, is the eighth Minister for Education to administrate over the HFS file since it was first raised in Leinster House in February 2001. Discussions on new school accommodation, however, have been taking place since the 1990s.

Slow progress

Stage 2(a) design was approved in January 2016. While Ms Moynagh accepts that this is positive, she says: 'It's so slow, it's very hard to see anything as progress. Here we are, it's now April, we had hoped to move in the Summertime, obviously that was to be this summer, it won't now of course and we're still dealing with the same issues that were raised more than 10 years ago.'
The Department of Education, however, has authorised a pre-qualification of potential interested contractors, which represents some movement on their previous position. That was confirmed by Fianna Fáil Deputy Brendan Smith who last week also secured a Dáil discussion with the Minister on the matter.
'The pre-qualification authorisation will ensure no further delays in bringing this project to construction stage,' he told the Celt this week.
Deputy Smith had told Minister Bruton from the benches of Leinster House that it was 'extremely important' the project be 'progressed without further delay'.
'The board of management does not want to have to introduce waiting lists for the first time in the school's history. It is the only such school in Cavan-Monaghan. If it is not possible to accommodate all children who need to attend the Holy Family Special School, serious problems will arise for those with moderate, severe and-or profound disabilities in counties Cavan and Monaghan. Children who need to attend this school must not be deprived of that opportunity,' he emphasised to the Minister.
Fellow party member Niamh Smyth also contributed to the debate.
Responding Minister Bruton said that the school project will be a 'priority' once approval for the 2(b) planning phase has been granted. 'The situation increases the urgency of the case but we cannot move on one piece before overall approval has been granted,' he said.