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1 4 July 2017
I
N 2011 the Department of Education
bought a four-acre site at Merrymeeting,
Rathnew, Co Wicklow on which to build a
new school building for what is now St
Coen’s Catholic primary school.
The Department subsequently got planning
permission to squeeze a second school into the
St Coen’s site though it is barely big enough for
one school. The St Coen’s school play area,
while it is bigger than the proposed Gaelscoil
play area, is already too small for its 250 pupils
so the St Coen’s drop-off area has to double as
an additional play area. Each school is
designed to eventually accommodate 500
pupils.
Pressure is being put on Gaelscoil Chill
Mhantáin, now based two miles away in Wick-
low town, to move to 1.2 acres on the
Rathnew site.
Ironically, in 2002 another
site, of 1.7-acres was bought
by the Department from the
Dominican Order at a cost of
€571,500 for the Gaelscoil
on the outskirts of Wicklow
town when it was expected
to develop into a school of
just eight classrooms was
deemed unsuitable when the
ambitions of the school increased.
The department instead agreed to pay
rent of €118,742 a year to lease land and pre-
fabs for the Gaelscoil at the Rathnew site. But
the Rathnew site is actually smaller than the
one rejected 12 years ago.
The Gaelscoil is currently housed in a former
VEC school located in Wicklow town which is
under the control of the Kildare and Wicklow
Education and Training Board (which is
ultimately under the control of the Depart
-
ment). Over €250,000 has been paid by the
Department to upgrade the school. The site of
about three acres is zoned for educational use
and allows for football, hurling, soccer and
other sports.
At the cost of a small percentage of the
money that the Department of Education is pro-
posing to spend on the new school building,
the existing Gaelscoil building in Wicklow town
could be brought up to modern standards.
There are no apparent reasons why this loca-
tion cannot be used long-term; and moving the
Gaelscoil to Rathnew, though favoured by the
Gaelscoil’s current board of management,
would be against the wishes of the vast major-
ity of parents of the Gaelscoil, St Coen’s parents
and local residents. Over 50% of the chil-
dren attending Gaelscoil Chill
Mhantáin live in Wicklow Town.
(The remainder live in Rath-
drum, Brittas Bay, Ashford,
Rathnew, Glenealy and Red-
cross). If the school is
located on the Merrymeet-
ing site, then the vast
majority of these children
will be transported to and
from school each day in cars. A
spokesman for Parents of Wicklow
Gaelscoil highlighted the Department of
Education’s own guidelines, which stipulate a
16-classroom site should have three acres of
land. He said there would not be enough space
on the site for the children to play or for bicycle
parking, a requirement of planning permission.
He added that a recently built Educate Together
school in Wicklow town had been given a four-
acre site.
Gaelscoil under
inexplicable pressure to
move from ideal site in
Wicklow to overpriced
but small and awkward
site in Rathnew
by Michael Smith
The Rathnew
site is actually
smaller than the
one rejected 12
years ago
Education Department
paid inflated price just
before government fell
NEWS
July 2017 1 5
So why the push to build a new building for the Gaelscoil in Rathnew
now?
The land was purchased by the Department a few days before the
FF-GP coalition left office, suggesting perhaps it was a political
decision.
The Department paid €1,708,500 for the site in January 2011. This
price was at least five times the true value of the site. A valuation com-
missioned by the Department in September 2007 from Douglas
Newman Good - at the height of the boom in land prices – had valued
the land at €1.25m. That valuation had weighed the fact that “a recent
sale of a development site of .304 hectares situated in Rathnew with
full planning permission for 8 apartments was confirmed sold for
€800,000” and that a boarding school in Rathnew on 26.3 hectares had
sold in 2005 for €14.95m. Clearly those prices no longer pertained in
2011. There are obvious problems with the site. According to Tomás Ó
Maonaile, a former chair of the Gaelscoil’s board of management (and
chairman of its founding committee), “the price paid was an inordinate
amount for the land in question, given:
a. The size of the plot.
b. The topography of the plot (it is on a steep slope and described as
‘hilly’ in Department of Education documents).
c. The need to break and remove a large amount of rock on the site.
d.
The economic circumstances of the State at the time the plot was
bought (January 2011!).
e. The location of the plot.
f. The highly exposed nature of the site which requires that buildings
have extra fortification.
g. The zoning on the site.
h. The Vendor has retained 2 separate Rights of Way over the plot, one
traversing the plot from the East boundary to the West boundary and
the other traversing the site from the North boundary to the South
boundary. These rights of way may have serious implications for the
future use of the site.
i. During the negotiations to buy the site the vendor agreed to lift any
burden limiting the use of the site to the amalgamated school.
j. The vendor received in excess of €1m in rental payments from the
Department of Education. for part of this site prior to the purchasing
of the site by the Department of Education.
k.
(k) The availability of many alternative, more suitable sites in the area
at much lower cost”.
The Gaelscoil is currently housed in a former VEC school located at the Abbey in Wicklow Town
Prefabs for the Gaelscoil when it was at the Rathnew site - now gone
1 6 July 2017
NEWS
In a letter to the Public Accounts Committee Ó
Maonaile has claimed; “Of great concern to me
was that the Chairman of the Board of Manage
-
ment of the new amalgamated school (who had
also been a member of the Board of Management
of one of the schools to be amalgamated) was
intimately involved in the decision making pro
-
cess to buy the land while at the same time
having a legal interest in the land which was
being sold to the Department of Education. There
is a clear and a serious conflict of interest
here”. Indeed the conflict would have arisen
when the land was being leased.
The chairman of the board (of St Coen’s) is a
local builder, Michael O’Sullivan.
Clearly there would have been issues for Mr
O’Sullivan under ethics guidelines for State
bodies, such as schools. “State Bodies Guide-
lines” was published by the Department of
Finance in March 1992. The guidelines were
updated in 2001, 2009 and 2016.
At relevant times these guidelines (both 2001
and 2009) required:
“On appointment to a Board of a State body,
each member should
furnish to the Secretary of the body details
relating to…business interests…which could
involve a conflict of interest or could materially
influence the member in relation to the perfor-
mance of his/her functions as a member of the
Board”; and
“Should a matter relating to the interests of
the Chairperson arise, he/she should depute the
Deputy Chairperson or another Director to chair
the Board meeting and should absent himself/
herself when the Board is deliberating or decid
-
ing on a matter in which the Chairperson has an
interest”; and
“A Director should absent himself/herself
when the Board is deliberating or deciding on
matters in which that member (other than in his/
her capacity”.
There are strong rumours locally that a senior
politician was in some way involved in the land-
purchase negotiations.
Should the Gaelscoil move back to Rathnew
there will be difficulties: the architects have
already requested “an uplift” in fees on
11/1/2016 due to the “difficulty and complexity
of the site”.
The projected budgeted cost of building the
new school is currently at €4,731,140.07
(29/7/15) having already increased twice since
Stage 1. Considering the upturn in the economy
this will have increased further before the build-
ing works commence. However, worse still,
‘abnormal costs’ are currently over €1,176,821
due to the complexity of the site. For example
over €25,000 is budgeted for a “main entrance
canopy due to high wind exposure” The archi-
tects state that the “site is very tight and there
is very little option for biomass [heating-system]
location due to varying levels around the site and
subsequent lack of access for serving a biomass.
Hence the underground option mooted is pre-
ferred” even though it is “more expensive and
may not be viable”.
The Department of Education’s Technical
Guidance Document on the Identification and
Suitability Assessment of Sites for Primary
Schools (2012) states that “A site presenting
issues that may give rise to significant abnormal
development costs should be avoided”. Ó
Maonaile argues that in law this document cre-
ates a legitimate expectation for stakeholders
that its terms will be observed: “The Gaelscoil
Chill Mhantáin community have a legitimate
expectation that their new school will be built on
a 3 acre (1.6ha) site.
The Combined Rathnew school community
have a legitimate expectation that their new
school will be built on a 3 acre (1.6 ha) site”.
The site itself is too small to house a 16-class
-
room school. Wicklow County Council – not
subject to the same pressures as the Education
Department - described it as a “substandard
sized site” (letter from Wicklow Co Council to
Education Minister, 14/12/2015) allowing no
room for expansion. The government’s own
development plan for school campuses states
that “new schools will be built to grow with their
communities and to provide for more interactive
child friendly model of education”. The site at
Merrymeeting does not allow for any expansion
as there is no green area at all and the play areas
come right up to the boundary wall with the
adjoining school. As stated by the Project Design
Team at a ‘stakeholders meeting’ (21/09/15)
“future expansion of this school is not possible
due to the restricted site”.
The Department’s quantity surveyors have
said:
“The abnormal costs at 39% as a proportion
of the Basic Building costs are high, primarily
due to the particularly challenging and tight site
with its steep gradient which dictates a large
reduce-level excavation”.
Ultimately, it makes no economic sense to
place the school on this site when there is a
much cheaper, more suitable alternative
available.
Under the Wicklow County Development Plan
2013-2017, there is a number of sites zoned edu-
cational/community, all of which are bigger than
the planned site at Merrymeeting. There is one
at the top of the Marlton Road which is at the
start of the town relief road. The abnormal costs
for the Merrymeeting site of over €1,100,000
could be spent on purchasing this 8.7 acre site
which would future-proof the school. It would
also provide the space and possibility of
a Gaelscoil secondary school to share the same
site, supporting official goals of both the Local
Authority and the Department of Education.
As a result of their handling of the above
issues most parents in the Gaelscoil have lost
confidence in the current Board of Management
and its ability to run the school for the benefit
of the school community.
Whose good is or was served by this policy
scandal and why should innocent children bear
the consequences?
The Department paid
€1,708,500 for the
site in January 2011.
This price was at least five
times the true value of the site.
A valuation commissioned by
the Department in 2007 - at the
height of the boom - had valued
the land at €1.25m
Proposed site for the Gaelscoil
