back to local updates

Department failing Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire: plan needed for new school building  

  • Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire’s new school building was due to be open in June 2025, but the site is empty with no plan in sight to get the school built.  
  • Minister must answer questions on why the contract was terminated and when the new school building project will be completed.  

Labour TD for Dublin Central, Marie Sherlock, has demanded answers from the Minister for Education as to when building will commence on the new Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire school building on Dominick Street in Dublin 1.  

The Minister for Education and Youth must answer serious questions about this project’s mismanagement. The sod was turned on this site in June 2023 and supposed to be ready for handover in June 2025.  

Deputy Sherlock said:  

“We are four months on from the termination of that contract with no clarity on why the contract was terminated, when the Department will go out to tender, or indeed if it can get a contractor to pick up where the last contractor left off.  

“The school community of Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire are being strung along by the Department of Education with no answers of when their new school building will be completed. The school community is now about to move to yet another temporary building, having already spent over 20 years in a temporary building that was not fit for purpose.   

“The Department brought in a project manager last year to great fanfare. We were told that they would sort out all the issues, including the design and delays. We are now 16 months on, and we have an empty building site and no clarity on why the contract was cancelled.  

“If the cancellation was cost related, as I understand it, the cost stood somewhere between €21 million and €25 million. If we go back out to tender again, the Department will have little change from €30 million for this school building. 

“The reason for the increasing costs and delays is because of the mess and incompetence within the Department of Education.  

“Solemn promises were made in November 2023 that this long-awaited new school building would be built. The parents, staff and most crucially the pupils of Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire deserve answers from the Department.  

“Works must recommence on this site with urgency to deliver this new school building on the site on Dominick Street. The school community deserves better.”