‘Game changer’ for Limerick village as €3.2m school extension can now go ahead

A €3.2m EXTENSION at Croom National School can now go ahead thanks to the generosity of a local landowner.

The growing school was approved funding from the Department of Education four years ago but access proved a problem.

Emmett Murphy, principal, said the school was at “quite an impasse”.

“We are kind of landlocked with the three-way junction, being a protected building and the protected bridge at the front of the school. The council wasn’t able to facilitate us with an entrance at the front of the school,” explained Mr Murphy.

This was until Deputy Richard O’Donoghue and his brother Cllr John O’Donoghue dropped into the school this month with a letter of permission from local landowner Con Duggan. He has given land for free for a road to be built to allow access to the back of Croom NS.

It will be a spur off the Croom distributor road, or as locals call it the ‘road to nowhere’, which Limerick City and County Council states it does not have the funding to complete

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Deputy O’Donoghue praised Mr Duggan’s generosity and community ethos.

“I was contacted by retired deputy principal Catherine Kennedy asking was there anything I could do. I have been dealing with Mr Duggan for many years and he said he had no problem in giving the slip of land and right of way. He has given them the land with no cost. All I am asking the local authority to do is extend the existing road by 60 metres to get them to the back of the site over land that has been given to them at no cost,” said Deputy O’Donoghue.

The principal of Croom NS said the school and the board of management is “indebted” to Mr Duggan especially, as well as Deputy Richard O’Donoghue, Cllr John O’Donoghue and Minister for State Niall Collins.

The €3.2m extension is for two classrooms for autistic children, a mainstream classroom, multi-disciplinary hall, new toilet block and administration facilities.

“We couldn’t go to planning until the entrance way was sorted so the great thing now thanks to Mr Duggan is we can go forward now to the planning stage,” said Mr Murphy.

The new access to the back of the national school has been described as a “game changer” for Croom.

“It will link up the secondary school (Coláiste Chiaráin) and primary school. At the moment parents have to go all the way around Croom to go from one to the other if they are dropping off children to both.

“What this does is it opens up Croom. Parents can use the new roundabout and go from one school to the other. It opens up Croom for secondary and primary education,” said Mr Murphy.

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Cllr John O’Donoghue submitted a notice of motion at this month’s Adare-Rathkeale Municipal District meeting that the council start the process of linking Croom NS to the distributor road at the rear of the school.

In response, a senior engineer said the council favours the development of such an access “in principle”.

“In order to progress the planning process for the new school access, permission will be required from the landowners involved. The Department of Transport has indicated that they are not in a position to fund any further sections of the distributor road.

“As the link to the school is to facilitate school development, the applicant should make an approach to the Department of Education to fund / part fund the road construction. The council will also seek a funding contribution from the National transport Authority under the Safe Routes to School programme,” reads the reply.

Once the above funding possibilities have been investigated, the council will then review the matter. The engineer adds that the indicative cost of building a road of this nature is in the order of €1m per 200 metres length.