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Over 1,000 new school places to be delivered in Edenderry and Tullamore

The Minister for Education & Skills, Richard Bruton, is today (Friday May 4th) visiting County Offaly to officially open a new 675 pupil school for Tullamore Community College. The Minister will also open a new 13 mainstream classroom + 2 special classroom extension at Scoil Mhuire, Tullamore.

The government have set the ambition to make Ireland’s education and training service the best in Europe within a decade. Ensuring our children are educated in state of the art facilities is important to delivering on that ambition.

During his trip, the Minister will visit the new, recently secured site for Oaklands Community College, Edenderry. The acquisition of the new site, will accelerate the provision of a new school for Oaklands Community College, which will cater for 850 pupils on completion.
The Minister will also open an extension at Coolanarney National School, Tullamore which provides for a mainstream classroom and a special education teaching (SET) room.

Altogether, the government is investing €18m to provide these new state of the art facilities across County Offaly. The total capital spend in the Offaly region alone on school buildings is €76m in the last seven years.

Opening the new schools, Minister Bruton said,

“I’m delighted to be here today, with my colleague Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy to mark what is a very significant investment by this government in local schools - €18m which will deliver over 1,000 new and replacement school places for Tullamore and Edenderry.

“We are now creating more school places than at any other period in the history of the State. In 2010, some 9,000 school places were created. In 2017, we built approximately 18,800 new and replacement places.”