{"id":324981,"date":"2026-02-07T10:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T10:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/324981\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T10:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T10:05:09","slug":"primary-school-forced-to-close-despite-warning-six-months-earlier-of-fire-safety-problems-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/324981\/","title":{"rendered":"Primary school forced to close despite warning six months earlier of fire safety problems \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Co Kildare<\/a> primary school<\/a> had to close for three days last month despite a warning six months earlier to the Department of Education<\/a> it would become non-compliant for fire safety regulations.<\/p>\n

Hewetson National School in Clane<\/a> had applied for financial assistance from the department\u2019s emergency works fund, a contingency scheme specifically for unforeseen events that require a rapid response as well as to facilitate access for pupils with special needs.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats<\/a> TD Aidan Farrelly said six months before the certification ran out an inspection identified that certain works had to be undertaken to comply with the rules.<\/p>\n

The school applied in good time for the funding but \u201cessentially, the department were just so slow with administering it that they couldn\u2019t draw down the funds to get the work done. So the school had to close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt only closed for three days in the end because suddenly the department were very forthcoming, once the closure happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school had to give parents less than a day\u2019s notice of closure.\u201d <\/p>\n

The department getting six months\u2019 notice \u201cis what parents were really annoyed about\u201d. <\/p>\n

He expressed concern there may be a trend of such closures. <\/p>\n

He added that schools approved for significant capital building projects were being refused funding for emergency problems such as boilers breaking and lack of heating.<\/p>\n

In a written reply to the TD\u2019s parliamentary question, Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton<\/a>, who took up her role in November last year, said \u201cthere was no formal backlog\u201d for the fund. <\/p>\n

She pointed out the fund is for a situation \u201cwhich is sudden, unforeseen and requires immediate action, and in the case of a school, if not corrected, would prevent the school or part therefor from opening\u201d.<\/p>\n

The fund is intended to remedy an emergency situation and \u201cusually provides only an interim measure until a permanent solution can be delivered under the summer works scheme which deals with upgrade works to the school\u201d.<\/p>\n

Applications are \u201cassigned and assessed shortly after receipt of the application\u201d and if all criteria are met and all information supplied \u201cit is normally approved within days of initial receipt\u201d.<\/p>\n

But she said \u201cin the majority of cases further engagement with the applicant school is required\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last year 1,114 applications were received with 751 accepted and 368 rejected for a total spend of \u20ac76.163 million in emergency works. <\/p>\n

The year before, emergency funding of \u20ac86.564 million was issued with 1,265 applications, 918 of which were accepted while 163 were refused.<\/p>\n

Farrelly said the work required in many schools meant the fund \u201conly scratches the surface in terms of some of the very old buildings our schools are in\u201d.<\/p>\n

There is a lot of focus on the department\u2019s capital projects for new schools or temporary accommodation on sites. In Co Kildare there is \u201creal stress on school services because of the capacity issue\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re probably not talking enough at all about the standards in existing schools built in the 1970s, \u201880s and older. Have they got the renovation, have they got the upkeep?\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u20ac76 million emergency fund spending \u201cshows the reliance on fixing a problem here or there without looking at the school in the round\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Irish National Teachers\u2019 Organisation, which represents primary teachers, recently raised issues about the operation of the emergency works scheme at a high-level meeting with department officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Co Kildare primary school had to close for three days last month despite a warning six months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,16210,13264,18,29353,19,17,121228,3625,22617,18578],"class_list":["post-324981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-clane","tag-department-of-education","tag-eire","tag-hildegarde-naughton","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-national-teachers-organisation","tag-kildare","tag-primary-level","tag-social-democrats"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116028789581739246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}