Loreto open at long last!
BRAND new classrooms empty for many months will finally echo to the sound of hundreds of students as the doors open at the new Loreto school this week.
Delighted staff members moved into the multi-million euro school yesterday (Monday) eight months after the gates were padlocked in January, just days from a scheduled opening, following the collapse of UK company Carillion and Irish construction firm Sammon Ltd.
Months of uncertainty over the completion of the building and protests by sub-contractors who were not paid for work carried out threatened to further delay the project, but on Thursday the school will finally welcome the 780 students on this year’s enrolment list, almost three years after the turning of the sod at the site.
It is expected that thanks to the extra capacity, the school population will rise to 900 students over the next four years.
Nobody is more relieved at the opening of the school than school principal Billy O’Shea who has been campaigning for a new school for 20 years.
‘We are thrilled and very relieved... but there is a cloud over it. We have great sympathy for the sub-contractors and we will continue to highlight their case. None of us would like to do a week’s work and not be paid,’ he said.
A spokesman for the unpaid sub-contractors said there are ongoing issues that have to be dealt with.
‘We are delighted that the school is opening after a 20-year campaign but there are a significant amount of issues that still have to be addressed – and they are ongoing – even before the students go into the school on Thursday,’ he said.