Damp Classrooms, Inadequate Bathrooms And Delayed Builds: Parents Appeal For New Special School In Kildare

Wednesday, 17 June 2026 16:54

By Daniel Maher

The school provides education for children with moderate and severe learning disabilities across Kildare and west Wicklow.

Concerns have continued to be raised in relation to conditions at St Anne's Special School in the Curragh.

The school provides education for children with moderate and severe learning disabilities across Kildare and west Wicklow.

Parents have raised concerns about the conditions for the students, wheelchair accessibility and space, as well as bathroom facilities and delays to a long-promised new school.

They also allege that a lack of funding has resulted in educational supports being diverted to keep the lights on and pay the bills.

St Anne's is included in the list of schools in the recently published plan from the Department of Education who received planning permission in 2022 and will expire in March 2027 if construction does not commence.

In a letter written by the St Anne's Special School Parents Association and seen by Kfm news, they said that the "Department declined some repair works as St. Anne’s and that the plan for construction "is currently within the detailed design stage 2b of a new school building".

They added that "the delivery of the new school building has been significantly delayed and has been at the detailed design stage for a very long
period".

Labour and Kildare South TD Mark Wall had last week spoke in the Dáil about the difficulties faced by wheelchair users in St Annes Special School in the Curragh.

He requested for the Taoiseach follow up with the Minister for Education.

He outlined that "more than a dozen" wheelchair users have no access to inclusive equipment on the schoolgrounds during break times.

Deputy Wall also mentioned that there was only one accessible bathroom for 40 students.

On social media he said that "we need more than words, we need to see shovels in the ground".

Speaking on Kildare Today, a parent of one of the students, Nuala Henry said that the current school isn't fit for purpose:

"The prefabs are modern and they're lovely and they're clean, but they're not fit for purpose. The children have complex needs and as it is, there's only one accessible toilet facility for up to 80% of our students, which most are incontinent."

"It's really not inclusive or good enough for our children."

"The playground at the back is not suitable, they're squashed into the small little playground at the front, which isn't inclusive and doesn't have the equipment for safe use for children in wheelchairs. So unfortunately, at the moment, there's nothing for those children."

"Now the junior school itself, it's in poor condition. It's cold, it's damp in parts, the classrooms aren't fit for purpose. It's not the new standards and the staff are really doing their best, but they can only do so much."

Ms Henry also mentioned that the Defence Forces were deployed at one point to assist the kids, adding that the building is incurring increased running costs:

"We had to get the Defence Forces in to help put them in and get them ready for September, when really they should have been gone into the new build.

"We should have a state-of-the-art new build and we wouldn't have all these running costs."

Deputy Wall also featured on Kildare Today, and says that it's important that the school goes to tender as quickly as possible:

"We need to see the next stage, which is the tendering stage, which can take anything from nine months up to a year. We need to see that rolled out for the likes of St. Anne's and for other schools as well, but particularly for St. Anne's, because the conditions that Nuala has just described, again, are just simply not good enough."

The full interview can be heard below:

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