The long running saga of providing permanent school buildings for the Drogheda Educate Together Secondary School at Colpe continues, but at a snail’s pace. This year’s Leaving Cert students have received the entirety of their secondary education in prefabs.

So far the Department of Education has spent eleven million Euro on the hire of prefabricated school buildings but not a brick has been laid on permanent buildings to replace them.

Local TD Ged Nash has slammed the additional delays on progressing the DETSS project and raised it in the Dail again yesterday.

Last April, Meath County Council asked the Department of Education to provide it with ‘further information’ on aspects of the planning application for the proposed new permanent building at Colpe” Deputy Nash said.

Between the Department and the Council, the period for the receipt of further information has now been extended by a further three months. The original deadline was the 15th October.

Deputy Nash said;

“This is outrageous and it is now clear that it will be 2025 before a decision is made on the permanent building. The Minister has suggested to me in a Dail reply that the Department will forward the information required in Q4 of this year – but that is only a matter of weeks before the new January deadline.

“The delays are endless and the school community is entitled to an explanation. By the end of this school year, the DETSS will have said goodbye to its very first intake of students, none of whom will get to spend any time in the custom-built permanent school facilities for which they, their families and school staff have campaigned.

“Already, more than €11m has been spent on temporary, modular buildings when we should have been well advanced on the building of the permanent school.”