Three Kilkenny schools receive funding for exciting new projects

Minister for Education, Norma Foley, has announced the beginning of construction on seven large-scale school building projects across the country as part of Project Nore.

Three schools in Kilkenny and four further schools in Tipperary, Westmeath and Kildare are due to receive new and modernised facilities under the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA) in a development costing over €250 million.

CBS Kilkenny, Presentation Secondary School and St Canice's Primary School in Kilkenny City are all set to benefit from the project.

The local funding has been allocated as follows:

• CBS Kilkenny - New school building for 1,000 students including special classes
• Presentation Secondary School - New school building for 1,000 students including special classes
• St Canice's Primary School - New 24 classroom school building including special classes

The projects include special class facilities to support the integration and inclusion of students with special educational needs in their local communities and these new school buildings will incorporate renewable systems that include heat pump technologies for heating and solar panels as part of future proofing the schools from a climate perspective.

Project Nore is the first of six bundles of large school building projects that are being delivered by the NDFA, with the full programme catering for over 24,000 students across 10 different counties.

The construction of this bundle of seven school projects has been awarded to a joint venture partnership between JJ Rhatigan and Co. and ABM Design and Build Ltd.

Announcing the funding on Tuesday, Minister Foley said: "Under Project Ireland 2040, over €5 billion is being invested in the school sector over the period 2021-2025, which will add additional capacity and develop and upgrade school facilities across the country for the almost one million students and over 100,000 staff that learn and work in our schools every day.  This is demonstrative of the strong support from Government for investment in education.

"The school building programme has approximately 300 projects at construction in 2023 which includes over 40 new school buildings at a total State investment of over €1 billion.  There are a further 72 projects currently at the tender process including 27 new school buildings.  All of these new school buildings are flagship projects in their area and transform the education infrastructure for those school communities."