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School braced for first major facelift in a hundred years E-mail
Written by Rachael Finucane   
Wednesday, 28 January 2009

AFTER 10 years of waiting, in a building over that has not had a major refurbishment since 1909, pupils at Kilfinane NS are finally expected to get new school building this year.
It was announced last week by Minister for Education, Batt O’Keefe, that tenders will be sought for a new six-classroom school with a general purpose hall and associated works in Kilfinane.
Deputy Jan O’Sullivan once dubbed Kilfinane NS “the worst national school in the country” for conditions including outdoor toilets and no staff room while berating Minister O’Keefe for ‘pulling the plug’ on the project.
Vice Principal, Marion O’Shaughnessy, welcomed the news that the school has the go ahead for a new building.
“Hopefully the tenders will go out as soon as possible. We have been waiting 10 years so when we got the go-ahead we just said ‘fine’. It’s been so long coming, we’re just relieved at this stage. The parents and staff are delighted that a commitment has finally been made,” she said.
She added that it is hoped that “prices will be coming in cheaper than before and that would be a bit of help, particularly in terms of the local contribution that has to be made”. “Fundraising has been going on for the last eight years so we hope this can be done as speedily as possible; we’re hoping that contracts will be signed by the end of March and it is hoped that building will start in the summer.”
She said that despite the delay in getting the new school building, current education minister, Batt O’Keefe, remains “the only minister to visit the school”.
“I think he was really appalled by the conditions and we appreciate his courtesy.”
Kilfinane NS was one of 10 major school building projects which were re-tendered last week because “crucially, tenders for school building projects are coming in less than last year so clearly there’s better value in the construction market and that’s the reason I’m putting these 10 projects out to tender again”.
Local deputies, Niall Collins and John Cregan, said that “in a time of deep recession this is great news for Kilfinane and we are delighted that we were able to get the go ahead. The people have been waiting a long time”.
The need for a new school was highlighted in a 1999 study and the tendering process was previously delayed in late 2007 amid concerns that the education department did not have enough funding available.
The local convent donated a site worth over €1 million for the building while the local community also offered €150,000 to kick-start the project last year.
Last summer, parents withdrew their children from the school in protest at the conditions.

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