School to get purpose-built waste system as no local connection available before new term begins

The Department of Education is installing a purpose-built wastewater treatment system so a Co Cork special school can open next week, The Echo has learned.

This system will be necessary because Uisce Éireann has not signed off on connecting the special school to the overloaded local sewerage system.

The North Cork Community Special School is due to open in Carrignavar on August 27, but concerns had been voiced that it would not open because the local sewage treatment plant is beyond capacity.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed the local sewage treatment plant “biologically and hydraulically overloaded”, and the Department of Education declined three times to confirm that the school would open on time.

The EPA confirmed that it has an open compliance investigation into Uisce Éireann’s management of wastewater in Carrignavar. Separately, Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) has instigated separate legal proceedings against the water utility company for what it called “alleged deleterious discharges to the Cloghnagashee River” at the end of July.

The special school’s new premises is in a refurbished former primary school, and a key planning condition states it cannot be connected to the public wastewater network “without prior approval from (Uisce Éireann)”.

The school, which has 25 staff, caters for 36 children, aged between four and 18, who all have autism and mild or moderate learning difficulties.

Signed off

It is understood that all statutory approvals have been signed off so the building can be occupied by the special school.

Sources in the Department of Education said it is installing a specially-designed wastewater treatment system so the school can open while awaiting Uisce Éireann sign-off.

Work on the standalone wastewater system has already commenced, and sources said it will be ready before the school opens next Thursday.

One of five new special schools across Ireland announced in November 2024 for the 2025/26 school year, its opening in Carrignavar was postponed last September, and it instead commenced in surplus accommodation in Fermoy.

Carrignavar is about 10 miles from Cork city and, according to the 2022 census, has a population of 563 people.

Sewerage capacity has been a recurring issue in the village over the past decade. In 2017, the then Irish Water’s annual environmental report said Carrignavar’s wastewater system was overloaded and its final effluent was non-compliant with its own emission limit values.

The system was branded “organically and hydraulically overloaded” by IFI in 2019, and in 2020, Irish Water received the benefit of the Probation Act following a prosecution by IFI for breaches of fisheries and water pollution legislation.