When will construction start at the Patrician Academy?

Local Fianna Fáil councillor Pat Hayes this week welcomed Edu-cation Minister Norma Foley’s statement that the project to rebuild the Patrician Academy in Mallow has gone out to tender, and said he was confident that the school would be included in the next round of funding. The councillor said that he and Cllr Gearóid Murphy had been work-ing with planners and architects in recent months and had signed off on the overall plan. “The Department of Education sees the Patrician Academy as a priority, and I’m confid-ent that things will begin to happen in a few months,” he said.
In contrast to Cllr Hayes’s optimism, local TD Seán Sherlock is claiming that the school “has been relegated to lower pots of priority by the Depart-ment of Education”.
“The Patrician Academy Board of Management have requested a meeting with the buildings unit in the Department of Education in Tullamore,” said Deputy Sherlock. “I spoke to Minister Norma Foley a couple of weeks ago, supporting that request on the basis that I felt the least the Board of Management deserves is for the meeting to take place so that they know exactly where they stand in the pecking order”.
“The bottom line here is getting a start date for the beginning of construction works. It is understood that the Academy could be somewhere down around sixth, seventh or eighth in terms of the order of priority. They are being relegated, if you will,” he claimed. “If it is the case, we need to get the Patrician Academy up the pecking order so it can get a construction date.”
Cllr Hayes, however, said that, “The Government has delivered €30 million for Mallow General Hospital, €14 million for a new sewerage scheme, and €4 million for town development. This [the Academy funding] will happen too,” he predicted.