Reply from Department on Owenabue Educate Together School, Carrigaline

Writes Leo McMahon

In response to a motion from Cllr Eoghan Fahy (SF), lengthy correspondence was received at the recent meeting of the county council’s Carrigaline Municipal District (MD) from the Department of Education on behalf of Minister Hildegarde Naughton TD regarding Owenabue Educate Together National School (ETNS), Carrigaline.

In March, the MD adopted a motion from Cllr Fahy seeking an update from the Minister on meeting the future and pressing needs of Owenabue ETNS which is earmarked for a permanent building at Janeville, Carrigaline but is currently in temporary accommodation at Rosemount, Herons Wood, Carrigaline.

Owenabue Educate Together School, Carrigaline

An acknowledgement followed and at the more recent MD meeting, Private secretary to the Minister, Eimear Kavanagh said the brief was to develop a new 16 classroom primary school and five classrooms for children with special educational needs.

‘The project is currently at Stage 1 – preliminary design, (assessment of site, location suitability and initial sketch scheme). As part of the process, the design team submit a Stage 1 report.  A preferred option, including scope and extent of works to be carried out form part of this report.’

Ms Kavanagh said the report was received by the Department in January 2025 and a stakeholders’ meeting took place on March 24th, 2025. The meeting concluded with agreement that the design team would explore further design layout options.

‘On April 30th, 2025, an architectural workshop took place between the design team architect and the department’s senior architect. The full design team Stage 1 report was received in August 2025 and this is currently under review. On completion, department officials will be in contact with the school and patron regarding further progression of the project.

The letter went on to state that nationally, there were 105 projects to proceed to tender or construction this year and 2027 represented a first tranche of large scale projects. Further projects would be prioritised to proceed at a later stage as part of the five year National Development Plan with a total investment of €7.55 billion. At any one time, there were 260 to 300 projects under construction and up to 1,000 during this year. There were currently 18 school projects in Cork under construction and since 2020, 369 special classes had been sanctioned in Cork, 63 of which are for September 2026, Ms Kavanagh added.