‘It’s a disgrace to see all those prefabs and the school bursting at the seams’

More than 18 months after planning permission was granted for the desperately needed new school for St Mary's Special School along with the second phase of the Coláiste na Mí on the Johnstown Education Campus in Navan, construction work has yet to commence.

The first phase of Colaiste na Mi is full and there are now a large number of prefabs on site to accommodate the growing number of students while St Mary's Special School remains in temporary accommodation on the old Johnstown National School site and continues to wait for much needed purpose built facilities. 
Colaiste na Mi, a secondary school under the patronage of LMETB, opened its doors in temporary accommodation in September 2013. The first phase of the secondary school to cater for 450 students, was built at the same time as St Stephen NS, and the students moved in in January 2014.
The second phase of the school takes in Sion House, formerly St Martha's College and will bring the capacity of the school 1,000 students. There are now 633 students on the roll books, yet the sod hasn't even been turned on the development, which is estimated will take around 20 months to construct.
It means the brand new school has had to bring in prefabs to cater for the growing numbers of students. In the summer of 2016, seven general classrooms, a science room, two resource rooms, a GP area and an office were provided, while this year a further 12 general classrooms, a resource room, a science lab and an office, were added.
Navan Mayor Tommy Reilly has blasted the prefabs as an “utter waste of money” and said it was ‘disgraceful’ that pupils of St Mary's Special School continue to be in totally inappropriate accommodation and are still waiting for a proper purpose built facilities.

“It is a national disgrace that the new special school is being prolonged. It has full planning permission as does the extension to Colaiste na Mi. Are we going back to days of prefabs again? To see all those prefabs and the school bursting at the seams- it is a pure and utter waste of money. I can’t understand what the delay is.”
While planning permission was granted by Meath County Council in February of last year for both developments, the developed design is still being worked on and has now been submitted to the Department of Education for approval before the design team can move to preparing the tender documents.
LMETB CEO Martin O'Brien said a meeting is due to take place with department officials before Christmas to approve the costings and to get approval for the design team to commence work on the tender documents.
“Staff of LMETB and the Department of Education are working extremely hard to move it forward. It is a very, very complex project as it involved the integration of the school into the old Sion House, a listed building which takes extra time and planning,” he said.
One of the planning conditions for the second phase of the education campus is that access is not permitted onto the L5050 road but Mr O'Brien said he hopes the council will reconsider and review this. “We are not saying this is the solution but it is something that should be considered,” he said.