Dunshaughlin Education Campus goes to tender
The Department of Education has given the go-ahead for the Dunshaughlin Education Campus to proceed to tender which will include long-awaited purpose-built accommodation for Dunshaughlin Community National School and also a new 1,000 pupil secondary school for Coláiste Ríoga.
Both schools are under the patronage of LMETB and will share a site on the Dublin Road in Dunshaughlin, beside the Willows Development.
While Coláiste Ríoga is currently accommodated in high-quality temporary accommodation on the site, Dunshaughlin CNS is located in prefabs on the grounds of the local GAA club at the opposite end of the town.
Planning permission has been in place for both school buildings for several years. Parents of children attending Dunshaughlin CNS have been highlighting the slow pace of progress on providing the new school building over the past year in particular, so news that the project is finally moving to the tender stage will be widely welcomed.
Minister Thomas Byrne announced last Thursday that he had received confirmation from Education Minister Norma Foley that both projects would now proceed to tender.
He said: “This is really welcome news for Dunshaughlin as a growing town and I want to commend everyone involved in these projects for their ongoing work. I am pleased to have worked with Minister Foley in highlighting these projects and I will continue to champion them in the Dáil.”
Dunshaughlin CNS opened in 2020 in temporary accommodation in the grounds of Dunshaughlin and Royal Gaels GFC but with over 100 now in the school, it is rapidly outgrowing this accommodation and yard space is severely curtailed.
Planning permission for an eight-classroom school, including two rooms for special educational needs, was granted in November 2020.
Parents who enrolled their children in the start up school had expected their children would be in the new school in two to three years but more than four years on, only now is the project going to tender.
The new school for Coláiste Ríoga will accommodate 1,000 pupils and will include four Special Education Needs (SEN) classrooms.
The part two-storey, part three-storey school building will provide 37 classrooms together with specialist home economics, science, art, technology and administration rooms, and a PE hall.
Coláiste Ríoga opened in September 2021 with just 14 students and now has an enrolment of 200 with the first group of students sitting their Junior Cert exams last June.
Principal Declan Clarke said: “We are delighted with this news. We thank the Department of Education for progressing our permanent school building and providing excellent temporary accommodation in the meantime. We would also like to thank LMETB, our patron. If everything goes to plan we are hoping to move into the permanent building in September 2027 with state of the art facilities”.
Cllr Nick Killian who is chair of the school's board of management and chairperson of LMETB also welcomed the news and said he hoped the Department would now keep their word and follow through with this project without any further delays. “It is unfortunate that LMETB are in charge of this project. I would have more faith in LMETB to deliver this project more quickly.”
He also urged the Department of Education to communicate its accommodation plans for next September for Dunshaughlin CNS as early as possible in the year pointing out that there had been a lot of concern last year.
A new prefab needed to accommodate growing numbers was not ready in time for the new school year and one class had to taught in the nearby GAA clubhouse up to Halloween. It is understood that this new temporary accommodation now in place will have sufficient capacity to cater for incoming pupils in September.