Daly Wants Review Of Tendering Process For New Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí

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New Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly.

INCOMING Sinn Féin TD for Kerry, Pa Daly, has called on the Department of Education to review the tendering process for the new Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí school, so that local builders would not be excluded from the process.

A contractor has yet to be appointed to the project, located on a site between Hawley Park and University Hospital Kerry, which had its official sod turning ceremony last May and previously had a scheduled completion date of winter 2020.

Daly, who is a member of the Kerry Education and Training Board and of the Bord Bainistíochta of Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí, said that under current Departmental guidelines, only companies that made a profit of €19m or more over the last three years would be allowed to tender for the new building. This would effectively exclude any Kerry based builders.

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Deputy elect Daly said: “I am calling on the Department to review the process so that local builders would be given the chance to tender for the new building. It would be a shame if such a project was to exclude local builders. The current threshold of €19m would be beyond the reach of any local builder. It would make economic sense for local workers and local builders to benefit from this project.”

Back in March 2016, Kerry County Council signed over the site for the new school to the Kerry Education and Training Board.

They received approval from the Department of Education to progress the new school building to Stage 2 of the process in May 2018 and a year later, Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh, turned the sod on the site.  As of December 31, 2019, the project was at Stage 2B of the process.

The new school will cater for over 600 students and will feature 25 general classrooms, specialist classrooms, a library, multimedia labs, canteen and dining areas, a sports hall and the cultúrlann performance area.

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