Four schools get green lights for extensions

St Mary"s National School in Trim is one of four school building projects in Meath to get the green light this week from the Department of Education. The news has been welcomed by school principal Coilin Coigligh who said they were 'absolutely delighted' and were 'fortunate to have been one of the lucky schools to get the go-ahead'. Work on the €3.2m extension that will include nine classrooms, five special needs rooms and a general purpose hall is expected to start next month and construction is expected to take 18 months to two years to complete. Mr ' Coigligh said their final letter of sanction is due in the coming week and, once they get that, work can start straight away and he hoped work would begin next month. The news dispels doubts which arose over the project earlier in the year. 'Mainly, what it means for us is that we won"t have to use the old school building and children won"t have to cross a dangerous road every day,' said the St Mary"s principal. He said the old school building would need a lot of money spent on it to bring it up to a modern standard and that second, third and fourth classes will no longer have to attend classes there when the new extension opens. 'The children are all very excited. They have been hearing us talking about the extension since they came into the school and we have been fundraising for about eight years now. Pupils in fifth and sixth class are sad that they won"t get to go to school in it but classes from fourth up should get to,' said Mr ' Coigligh. The extension will also enable the school to take in 27 more children and will help reduce the waiting list for the school, though the principal pointed out that there is still a new primary school needed in Trim. The extension is the third phase in St Mary"s NS upgrade project. The first phase and second phases saw the refurbishment of the existing school during the summers of 2001 and 2002. St Mary"s NS caters for boys and girls up to second class and from second class on is for girls only. There are currently 528 pupils in the school. Ratoath National School on the Fairyhouse Road is also to get a 14-classroom extension - 10 classrooms for the junior school and four classrooms for the senior school. The additional accommodation will provide for 1,000 pupils in what is one of the biggest primary schools in the State. Minister of State Mary Wallace said this would at last see the end of the prefabs on this site, which has seen numerous extensions over the past decade and a half with the rapid expansion of Ratoath. The Minister for Education has given the project the green light to go to tender and to proceed to construction in the first half of 2009. Cllr Nick Killian said that, in the present financial climate, this news was very much appreciated and showed the commitment of the Minister and the Department of Education to the overall provision of education facilities in Ratoath. St Peter"s College, Dunboyne, is also to get a major extension to cater for the 300 pupils who are presently in temporary classrooms. This project has been cleared to go to construction before the end of 2008 and will result in the removal of eight prefabs and the provision of permanent accommodation for a total of 1000 pupils. The school has presently got 930 pupils and permanent accommodation catering for 650. Cllr Noel Leonard said: 'This is great news for Dunboyne, especially in the present financial climate where we were genuinely concerned, and shows the commitment of the Government to continue the capital programme for important facilities especially in education.' Rathfeigh Primary School is also to get its two-classroom extension, GP room and resource room bringing this school to a five-classroom school. It will the removal of two prefabs. Minister Wallace and Deputy Thomas Byrne said this was a major announcement for the parish of Rathfeigh and was very good news for the people who worked so hard over the past couple of years to move the project through the stages.