PLANNING is being sought for construction of a €10m thirty-four classroom primary school at Monaleen, Co Limerick, to replace the current local national school built around forty years ago.
A new school is needed to meet the demand of a projected doubling in the local population, from over 14,000 in 2016 to over 27,000 by 2040.
Around 800 pupils attend the current national school and prefabs on a four-acre site.
Confirming the move to seek planning permission, local Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell said that “the next steps are for the Limerick and Clare Education & Training Board (LCETB) to bring the school building through the planning permission, tender and construction stages”.
“It is planned for the new school building to be opened for teaching staff and pupils by 2024,” said Deputy O’Donnell.
“In summary, the new school building project is a 2 storey new building of 34 classrooms, with 32 mainstream and 2 SEN classrooms respectively. The new school building will be located on the existing 4 acre site and it will built as one unit.”
“The LCETB confirmed to me that they intend over the next few weeks to submit a detailed planning application for a new state-of-art €10m plus 34 classroom school building at Monaleen national school to Limerick City & County Council”.
“This will follow their stage2a approval meeting with the Department of Education to take place on 1 April, which will allow the school building project to proceed to apply for planning permission, MCOH Architects are the appointed design team for the new School building project.”
“This is another major step forward for this much needed new school building project in the high population growth area of Monaleen.”
Deputy O’Donnell said local families, and the existing local authorities, were “frustrated” at the time it has taken to kickstart “the lengthy process“ of planning a new school to meet a growth in the local population.
“However, we now have a defined structured process underway with LCETB which will ensure this much needed new school building project can be built as quickly as possible,” he said.
“I have been and will continue to work with the Monaleen National School, Parents association and the LCETB to progress the construction of this new 34 Classroom school building as fast as it can be done.”
