200 pupils in limbo as school built in 2009 is found to be unsafe

SOME 200 students in north Co. Dublin cannot go to school today after the building was found to be unsafe.

Ardgillan Community College in Balbriggan was forced to immediately close part of its building – built only nine years ago – following the discovery of ‘significant structural issues’.

The structural problems were discovered following a fire safety assessment of ‘Phase 1’ of the school building, which was constructed in 2009 on behalf of the Department of Education.

A statement released by the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board yesterday confirmed that the issues were found during an examination behind the plaster work in two classrooms on Friday.

The decision to close the section of the school ‘effective immediately’ was made between the board, school management and the Department of Education ‘in the interests of the health and safety of the students and staff of the school’.

Phase 2 of the building, built in 2015, is unaffected.

School management is now making ‘immediate arrangements’ to accommodate the 200 students who will be displaced, and will tell parents of the arrangements when finalised.

There are 910 pupils enrolled in the 1,000-pupil-capacity school.

‘Staff and parents have been informed by the school management and will be kept updated in this regard,’ the statement read.

A Department of Education spokesperson told the Irish Daily Mail last night: ‘Following advice from a consultant structural engineer and in consultation with the ETB a decision was taken to close a section of the school with immediate effect.’

They added that the safety of students and staff is the Department’s key priority ‘at all times’.

Last week, the school was shut down for a day following a threat from a 16-year-old boy to ‘shoot up’ the school.

The teenager made a series of threats on Instagram, allegedly posting online: ‘Don’t come in tomorrow if you have any regard for your life, you’ve been warned... Think I’m joking, you’ll see tomorrow.’ He then posted on the site: ‘I think I’m a shoot up Ardgillan Community College tomorrow’, followed by a photograph of a handgun, with a comment, ‘Oh s***, he got a gun. He is shooting up the school. Nobody come in.’

The threats prompted a Garda stake-out at his home before he was arrested.