THE GOVERNMENT will today announce details of the redevelopment of the Grangegorman site, which will see the majority of Dublin institutes of technology (DITs) move to one location on the capital’s north side.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Minister for Education Mary Coughlan are to announce the approval of the plan for the location, with a construction cost of €486 million. The project, they say, will create 450 jobs over a 10-year period.
The site will provide a modern consolidated campus for 22 of DITs’ 27 schools – meaning the majority of DIT activities, which are run in 39 locations, will be brought together.
It is hoped the consolidation of the schools in one location will yield significant organisational and operational benefits. Moreover, it is also hoped that significant cost savings can be achieved through the elimination of services duplication across various sites, given that the institutes account for 8.4 per cent of the total higher-education sector.
The site will also include purpose-built mental health facilities, which will see patients transferred from antiquated facilities, as well as a permanent primary school run by Dublin 7 Educate Together for 400 pupils.
In comments released in advance of today’s announcement, Mr Cowen said the Grangegorman site was a “significant project in terms of generating jobs and providing a key piece of infrastructure for education to develop our knowledge economy”.