Doubts cast over Cork special school opening as work yet to begin

Many children remain without an offer of an appropriate school place for next year, including dozens in Cork.

The special school project was one of five announced in October last year.

The projects were announced after the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and the department found the level of need for special educational places in these five areas could not be met by expanding existing special schools.

The Irish Examiner visited the proposed site for Cork this week and found no work had commenced on transforming the now derelict former school.

Former buildings and modular classrooms remain in place but require extensive work to be brought back into use.

Many windows are smashed, and some of the buildings are hoarded up. There are also many piles of rubble and debris, as well as half-demolished old buildings.

It is understood the lead-in times to install modular classrooms are currently taking up to nine months.

The Department of Education confirmed it is planning to repurpose the building at the site “to facilitate the opening of the new special school as early as possible in the 2025/26 school year”.

Interim arrangements will be put in place, in conjunction with the school’s patron Cork ETB, to “facilitate education provision” from September 2025.

More than 70 additional places in special schools in Cork will be created for the 2025/26 school year, in addition to 300 new special class places.

The department believes this will meet the needs of children in Cork for the upcoming school year.

Hundreds of people from across Cork attended a protest in the city at the beginning of the month, calling for action on school places. It followed a similar action in Dublin outside the Department of Education.

Sheila Casey Jones, a North Cork mother who has searched for special school places for her son Patrick as far away as Donegal, Laois and Kilkenny, called for action.

I don’t believe for a second that this place is going to be open for September 2025, not a chance. We’re just getting fobbed off. We’re almost at the end of March now. You can do a lot of things, I know they won’t need planning if they keep the original shell but that school needs serious internal changes. 

Clearing out can be done quickly and easily if a good team were put in place, she added. 

“You need that team in now, really starting to push and gutting that whole site. It needs a lot of work to get it up to scratch.”

The details of the school’s locations are included in briefing notes prepared for minister of state with responsibility for special education Michael Moynihan published by the Department of Education.

The other four special schools due to open are in Kishogue Cross, Lucan; Belmayne, North Dublin; Castleblaney, Monaghan; and Nenagh in Tipperary.