A special education school in Limerick is at risk of closure after engineer reports highlighted “several significant hazards to the welfare and safety of staff and pupils.”
The reports showed that St Vincent’s School in Lisnagry, Limerick had no fire cert and highlighted the presence of asbestos in the building, amongst other issues.
An FOI request submitted by Gript showed that Bishop Fintan Monahan sent a letter to Minister Norma Foley in January of this year informing her of the issues with the school, and pleading with the Minister to help the school remain open. The Minister was informed that the school could no longer admit further pupils until remedial work was carried out – something which it was accepted would “cause difficulties for several families and their children.” In 2015 the then Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan wrote to St Vincent’s to confirm that a new 26 classroom special school would be built for them. Despite St Vincent’s acquiring a site for the building of the promised school, and transferring it to the Department of Education a number of years ago, building has yet to begin. The Department, when queried by Gript, said that “the procurement of a design team is currently underway.”
The school was initially intended for 70 – 75 students but there are currently 112 students in the school. Conditions are reported to be ‘poor’ and immediate remedial work is required to make the school safe.
The letter informed the Minister that, due to the absence of a fire cert, the school was “no longer in compliance with the requirements of their insurance policy.” Allianz, the school’s insurer, had agreed to delay withdrawing coverage in order to give the school time to fix the issues. Bishop Monahan reminded the Minister that the withdrawal of insurance would “necessitate the immediate closure of the school.”
The school has been granted funding to carry out the work needed, but carrying out the work would require the school to be emptied of staff and children whilst the hazards were dealth with– something the Bishop said would take six months. The school has been unable to locate a temporary site to “decant” the school to during that time.
The situation has become so bad that, according to the Bishop, “the only option remaining will be to erect temporary structures on the staff car park.” However, the owner of the car park has refused to give permission for the temporary sites to be set up unless the Department confirms they have begun the process of building the new school.
This leaves the school with little option but to conduct the works over the summer months. It’s expected that this process could take up to two years to complete. It’s unclear if the school’s insurance provider will be willing to overlook the lack of a fire cert for that length of time – a situation which means the school could be forced to shut down at any time prior to the completion of the works.
The Department told Gript that “senior” members of the Department’s technical team had met with officials from the school in order to “draw up a scope of works and the methodology for how these works were to be delivered.” When asked if the schedule of work would mean the school would not be fully repaired until after the summer of 2024 the Department said they could not give us a timeline for the completion of the works.
Minister Foley did not respond to queries, and a request for comment, which were sent to her office.