One of five new schools to be provided under the Public-Private Partnership system adopted recently by the Department of Education will open in Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, in September 2002. It will bring to an end 100 years of education by the Marist nuns in the town.
The new school will replace the co-educational secondary school in Banada convent about five miles from Tubbercurry.
Run by the Sisters of Charity, the convent has a long history as the home of Banada lace. The order handed its school over to the diocese some years ago.
The new school will be built on a site which is currently home to several dozen sheep. There is little sign that within a year it will accommodate more than 700 pupils.
Costing about £8.5 million, the school is to be built by the British-based company, Jarvis. According to Mr Paddy O'Hara, chairman of Tubbercurry Chamber of Commerce, the developers will lease the school back to the Department of Education for 25 years, when it will be handed over to the Department.
However, the Chamber of Commerce and other community groups, while welcoming the new school, are particularly concerned about the lack of a swimming pool.
"Swimming is a compulsory school subject now", said Mr Roger McCarrick, former chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and a former teacher of PE and history. "There is no swimming pool for 20 miles in any direction and children have to be bussed for three-quarters of an hour each way to get a half-hour swimming lesson. "
He pointed out that Tubbercurry, a town of about 1,200 people, has a catchment area of more than 10,000 people and is expanding rapidly, with four new housing estates constructed recently.
While acknowledging that the maintenance costs of a swimming pool would be considerable, he said a recently constructed swimming pool in the smaller seaside town of Enniscrone had proved to be viable commercially all the year round.