Portion of Carlow College campus to be transferred to St Leo’s

A PORTION of land on the Carlow College campus is to be transferred to St Leo’s College for the development of classrooms for students with additional needs, the Department of Further and Higher Education has announced.

The provision of special education facilities has long been a priority for the school and follows significant campaigning in recent years. The land, understood to be about one acre, is adjacent to the school grounds and will not affect the playing pitches at Carlow College.

Principal of St Leo’s College, Niamh Broderick, said the school’s mission is to ensure every young person, regardless of ability or need can flourish. The new land will help the school provide “the spaces our most vulnerable students need and deserve”.

The department also announced an advisory group to shape the long-term vision for the Carlow College campus. Its members will include representatives from SETU, Carlow County Council, Kilkenny and Carlow ETB and the department. They will work closely with key regional stakeholders.

Set up by minister for further and higher education James Lawless, the group will inform a masterplan for the 17-acre campus. It will be chaired by former Fianna Fáil minister Noel Dempsey who was a teacher before entering politics and who served as minister for education from 2002 to 2004, holding several other cabinet positions during 24 years as a Meath TD.

Minister of state and Carlow TD Jennifer Murnane O’Connor acknowledged a difficult and challenging period for staff and students at Carlow College but welcomed both the advisory group and the land transfer. She said Carlow College “must remain an educational and community asset at the heart of Carlow town”.

SETU president professor Veronica Campbell thanked minister Lawless for setting up the group and said she looked forward “very much” to contributing on behalf of the university.

However, staff at Carlow College have strongly criticised the announcement, describing it as an attempt to spin the closure as a positive story.

Staff spokesperson Dr Regina Donlon said the department was presenting the closure as a positive new chapter while completely ignoring the staff whose jobs and livelihoods were being sacrificed. She described this as “a damning indictment of the shameful treatment of staff through this entire process.”