Minister told Cork city special school building is not fit for purpose

Teachers and parents at St Killian’s Special School on Cork’s northside have told special education and inclusion minister Michael Moynihan that their building was not fit for purpose and that they needed a new school as a matter of urgency.

The minister of state and Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North West, was in the school on Friday to see for himself the progress made since therapists were restored, and to hear the concerns of the staff — led by principal Sue Lenihan — and parents about the building.

The school sought the restoration of therapists since 2020 and thought it had secured this following a meeting with former disability minister Anne Rabbitte in 2023. But, in August 2024, when a pilot scheme was announced to restore therapists, it was not named among the schools included in the first phase.

The school secured funding from the HSE in October to pay for the therapists and shortly afterwards it was announced as being among those to be included in the second phase of the pilot scheme. Now therapists are in place and they are already making a positive impact, Ms Lenihan pointed out.

Pledged

Speaking to reporters after meeting with the parents, principal, and other staff members, Mr Moynihan said he was not going to make any “wild promises”, but pledged to “work extremely hard with them” to make sure of progress on a new school building.

“We will work with the school authorities, and my role is to make sure that the department responds in a timely fashion, and we will do that,” said Mr Moynihan.

During the earlier meeting, Mr Moynihan heard testimony of the difficulties which teachers, special needs assistants, and others had to overcome daily due to the building, which was formerly a boys national school.

The three-storey building has no lifts, which means children in wheelchairs or calipers are confined to the ground floor.

Campaign

Fiona Coughlan, a representative of the Parents Unite group which led last year’s campaign for the restoration of therapists, and Suzanne O’Flynn, chairperson of the parents committee, spoke to The Echo about the school — which Ms Coughlan likened to a ‘Russian orphanage” from the exterior.

Inside, she said, was a different story: We walked in the door, and that feeling of love just hit us, to see how every child was cherished, valued, and championed.”

According to Suzanne O’Flynn, who also works in the school as a bus escort accompanying children when they are on journeys to and from school and other locations, the children deserve a school that is fit for purpose.

“Every child deserves that,” she said.

Ms Lenihan told The Echo that St Killian’s was already on the list for a new school building, but there was an amount of work to be done to realise this and, in the meantime, temporary works would be carried out in order to carry on providing for the children and their needs.