State paid €571,500 for unused school site

A 1.7-acre site purchased by the Department of Education from the Dominican Order at a cost of €571,500 for a school on the outskirts of Wicklow town in 2002 has now been deemed unsuitable.

The department is instead to pay rent of €118,742 a year to lease land and prefabs for Gaelscoil Chill Mhantáin in Rathnew from September 1st, it has emerged.

The Gaelscoil was established in 1996 and has been operating up to now from two premises in Wicklow, a Methodist church hall and an ex-funeral home. Parents and management lobbied for a single premises and were given approval by the department to find a suitable site for a new school in 1998.

In March 1999 the school identified a site at Crinion Park/Glenside Road on the outskirts of Wicklow and the department agreed at that stage to purchase it from the Dominicans at a price of £215,000 (€273,000).

The board of management then applied for and was granted outline planning permission for an eight-classroom school. Following further negotiations, the department bought the site in 2002 and the price had increased to €528,000.

However, the school has now been told the site is not suitable for its needs and the project will not go ahead. Meanwhile, prefabs have been erected for Gaelscoil Cill Mhantáin on land at Rathnew, on the Dublin side of Wicklow.

The arrangement is to cost the department €118,742 in rent a year for the lease of prefabs and land from landowners Broomhall Developments. This site had already been earmarked for a new amalgamated school for Rathnew but is now leased to Cill Mhantáin for almost five years.

The current value of the purchased land is difficult to ascertain because it is zoned for educational purposes but an equivalent-sized site zoned for enterprise in Wicklow would be worth in the region of €900,000.

Roisin McCullagh, secretary of the board of management of Gaelscoil Cill Mhantáin said board members were disappointed and frustrated at not being able to use the purchased site.

"We are delighted to be able to move into a single site in Rathnew but people are totally fed up that our new school has not gone ahead yet," she said. "The department has told us that the OPW are looking at various sites to accommodate all the local schools that wish to expand. We have had no confirmation from them yet about a permanent solution."

Cllr Deirdre de Burca (Green Party) said she is concerned that educational provision in the town is not adequate.

"Wicklow County Council needs to ensure that educational planning is going to be adequate to meet the needs of this growing town," she said.

A spokeswoman for the department of Education said it purchased a site for Gaelscoil Cill Mhantáin when it was expected to develop into a school of just eight classrooms.

"However, as it is now expected that it will grow to a 16-classroom school in the long term, the purchased site is inadequate for its needs," she said.

"From September 1st, 2005, it will be housed in prefabricated classrooms on a greenfield site in Rathnew. This is a temporary arrangement. The department is pursuing the acquisition of a suitable site for the permanent school."

She said that in relation to the future use of the purchased site, the planning section of the department is examining the issue and a decision will be made on future use of the purchased site.

"The site was not suitable to house prefabricated classrooms and still leave room for development of a school," she said.