Aontú candidate in Galway West Orla Nugent has pledged her support for the campaign for a long-awaited new school building for St Joseph's College, 'The Bish'.
St Joseph’s Patrician College, the ‘Bish’ suffers from severe space constraints on the current Nuns' Island site which serves over 750 students despite being designed for 450, limiting the ability to expand Special Educational Needs (SEN ) provision and offer all students, in the heartfelt words of School Principal Sarah Gleeson, ‘opportunities to grow and develop further. We want this for them’.
After a consultative and planning process that went on for over 20 years and engaged with the concerns of many residents about traffic volumes, road safety and car parking, planning permission was granted in 2024 for a new 1,000-pupil campus in Dangan. The site was provided by the University of Galway in exchange for the Nuns' Island site. But the project has been excluded from the Department of Education's 2026/27 construction list.
"We were truly heartbroken not to be included in the prioritised construction list," says Gleeson, "and were offered no genuine explanation as to why we were left off it other than there were other projects that needed prioritisation."
The school has had to reject 250 applicants for the 2026-27 academic year due to lack of space. This at a time when parents in Galway are understandably anxious about school places. The planned green field campus is designed for 1,000 pupils, featuring modern classrooms, a PE hall, special needs units, and shared sports facilities with the university.
"We simply don’t have the space to offer our students opportunities to grow and develop further. We want this for them. We’ve done the very best we can for them, and will continue to do so, but it is a struggle that we and they should not have to endure."
Orla Nugent said she is a teacher and understands from first hand experience the consequences of this delay. She has pledged that Aontú party leader Peadar Tóibín will demand an explanation for the delay and will not be fobbed off with bureaucratic verbiage and excuses. She further pledged that if elected she will not let go: "Staff, students and future students deserve better," Ms Nugent said. "The Children’s Hospital saga is bad enough but at least they broke ground."
