New St Benedict's School for Ongar
Friday, 10 July 2009 13:45
Minister Brian Lenihan TD turns the first sod for the new St. Benedict’s school in Ongar.
Minister Brian Lenihan TD turned the first sod for the new St. Benedict’s school accompanied by school principal Noreen Behan on 25th June 2009.
Last week, teachers, parents and various dignitaries assembled on the new site in Ongar, where work on the new 24 classroom school is about to begin, to see Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan TD turn the first sod for the school’s foundations.
In his speech, the Minister said “the new school will be ready for occupation by September 2010,” he said. Referring to the Fingal Schools Model, the Minister stated that, “some years ago during my time as a junior minister there were a lot of problems about school provision in this area. I had met with all the various parties and we came to agreement on the way forwards. Now we have got the sites and despite the very bad economic times in which we are living, the money to build these schools will now be available.”
Under the terms of the Fingal Schools Model, the new school will have a general-purpose hall of 600sq. m. which is 50% larger than usual and this will be shared after hours with the local community. In addition a further 600 sq metres of community meeting rooms and offices will also be provided as part of the development.
Minister Lenihan also highlighted that “Fingal is the first county in Ireland where this model of school provision has been introduced and I hope it will be extended to others. The old system is just far too chaotic.” he said. The chairperson of the board of management, Mary Ward, thanked the Minister and Mayor of Fingal for attending the event and reminded everyone of his commitment that the school would be open in September 2010 to which the Minister replied that “only an act of God can stop this.”
Noreen Behan the school’s principal, was thanked by the Minister for her extensive work with the school.