New School Building For Celbridge School At Design Stage

St. Patrick’s Primary still operating from “temporary” modular buildings nearly two decades later.

Work continues at St. Patrick's Primary School in Celbridge, however larger questions loom. 

The modular building was only supposed to be in use for 5 years, 19 years later the school remains in a temporary structure. 

When asked about the status of the permanent school structure, Kfm News received the following statement from the Department of Education and Youth:

 "A new school building for St Patrick’s Primary School, Celbridge, Co Kildare is part of a campus project that has been devolved for delivery to the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) as part of a bundled school building programme.

The brief for the school includes the provision of 24 mainstream classrooms and 4 special education needs classrooms.

The project is currently at detailed design of the architectural process which involves developing the designs, fully cost planning the campus project and preparing the necessary documentation to facilitate the application for statutory approval to the local authority.

In a subsequent statement to Kfm News when asked about specific time frames, we received the following from the Department:

The project is part of the Celbridge Campus project encompassing St Patrick's Primary School, St Raphael’s Special School and Celbridge Community School. This project has been devolved for delivery to the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) as part of a bundled school building programme (Project Shannon). 

The brief for St Patrick's includes the provision of 24 mainstream classrooms and 4 Special Educational Needs classrooms. 

The project is currently at Stage 2a of the architectural design process. Stage 2a (the developed design stage) involves the Design Team developing the designs, fully cost planning the campus project and preparing the necessary documentation to facilitate the lodging for statutory approval to Kildare County Council as part of the Stage 2b process.

The department has recently received the Stage 2a report and this is currently under review from both a technical and cost perspective in accordance with Public Infrastructure Guidelines."

In relation to the recent works, concerned parent Áine Toibin said if it wasn't for the recent pressure, nothing would have been done on the current structure to make it safe: