Christmas comes early for cloonakilla ns

Christmas has come early for Cloonakilla National School in Bealnamulla with the news that construction will begin on a long-awaited new school next year.

The school has been included in the current five-year school building programme published this morning by Education Minister, Jan O’Sullivan, and has been designated as one of 16 urgent projects which will proceed to tender and construction next year.

“This is fantastic news for the teachers, staff, children, parents and the wider community in this rapidly growing area of South Roscommon,” Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan enthused.

“On two visits I made to the existing school this year, I saw at first hand the capacity pressures for staff and children at the school. Many pupils are being accommodated in prefabs and the school has had to turn away new enrolments because of severely restricted space,” added the Roscommon Deputy.

Earlier this year, Principal, Mary O’Rourke, said that they have more pupils looking for spaces at the primary school that they could currently cater for, adding that there was a huge need for a new school in the area to meet their educational needs.

In 2010, the Department of Education gave the green light for an extension and refurbishment project at the school to move to the planning and design stage in light of large increases in pupil numbers over the previous decade. However, it later controversially stalled after it was omitted from the five-year school building programme a year later.

Earlier this year, the school got planning approval for a new 16-classroom two-storey building on the site comprising of a a general purpose hall, staff areas, library, stores, a hard-play area with three courts and a new car-parking/set down area. However, the proposals were at a standstill awaiting funding from the Department of Education.

Reacting to news this morning, Cllr Tony Ward said he was delighted to learn of the funding allocation for the badly-needed new school development at Cloonakilla.

“This is a project that’s ready to go and it’s been needed for some time,” said Cllr Ward.

“I’m absolutely delighted for the parents, teachers and pupils at the school. There are over 300 pupils at Cloonakilla and I have previously been contacted by parents who wanted to send children there but instead had to bring them to other schools outside of the parish and the county because space wasn’t available.”

He said he had been campaigning for this new school development for the last few years, and also acknowledged the work Labour Senator John Kelly had done to help secure the funding.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan paid a visit to the school in Bealnamulla shortly before the Roscommon-South Leitrim by-election on October 10 last.