New school idle for four years after dispute with the builder
Pupils have to use prefabs while security firm is paid €350k to guard site
A NEW school has been lying idle for four years because of a dispute between the Department of Education and the builder, costing €350,000 a year in security fees.
The department said that the delay was caused by ‘issues on site’ at Mercy Convent Primary School in Naas, Co. Kildare.
A security firm is earning €350,000 per year to guard the school, a meeting of politicians and parents heard.
The meeting at Lawlor’s Hotel in Naas, on March 7, was attending by more than 150 people, including Kildare TDs Réada Cronin (Sinn Féin), Bernard Durkan (Fine Gael), James Lawless (Fianna Fáil) and Catherine Murphy (Social Democrats).
One parent, Tamsin Jones, told the Irish Daily Mail that it was ‘a travesty that the site has laid idle for so long’. She said there were junior infants when the project began in 2017 who will leave at the end of this year ‘having spent their entire primary school education being taught in a temporary structure’ – a situation which was only supposed to last two years.
She added: ‘There is no playground or field on which the children can run around and play during their break times.
‘Their physical education lessons take place on a parking lot/ tarmac, as there is no field, and if it is raining, which it often is, there is no hall in which these lessons can take place. It is a travesty that [the new school] sits there, looming unfinished and unused, while the teachers and children must make do in an old and worn prefab next door.’
The Department of Education accepts the project has been stalled by a dispute with the builder. ‘The original contract commenced on site in May 2017 but due to issues on site the contract was terminated in March 2020. An enabling works contract was undertaken in late 2020 to make the building safe and weather-tight,’ the department said in a statement.
Parents and teachers have expressed frustration because the students are using temporary prefabs while the new school remains unused.
Assistant principal Brian Corkery said 60 pupils are sharing three toilets, with no PE hall and the school staff room being used as a utility room.
He said teachers were told the prefab would only be used for 15 months. Protesters are planning to travel to the Dáil in coming days to hand in letters from parents and students.
The 28-room school was approved in March 2017, and construction began in May of that year.
In January 2018, school operations transferred to prefabricated units, and students were expected to be in the temporary building for a maximum of two years.
However, the department ended its contract with the builder in 2020 and then went through a lengthy process to find another contractor to finish the final waterproofing and other smaller projects on the school.
In a written response to Sinn Féin’s Ms Cronin on February 20 of this year, Education Minister Normal Foley said that the Government is using a ‘dispute resolution mechanism’ to solve the problem with the last contractor, while simultaneously looking for a new builder.
Minister Foley said: ‘The project for the school in question is currently part of a dispute resolution mechanism under the contract. My department is liaising with the school authority in relation to the conciliation process regarding the matters that were in dispute with the former contractor.’
She added: ‘My department is also working on the arrangements for the completion of this project as quickly as possible by a new contractor.’
Under the current Department of Education plan, the school is expected to open in 2026.
‘There’s no field or playground ‘Dispute resolution mechanism’