RTE Planning Application and Donnybrook School Places
Lucinda is campaigning for a solution to the ongoing issue of lack of primary school places in the Donnybrook area. She believes that the proposed redevelopment of the RTE Montrose site offers an opportunity to resolve the problem and she is working with all interested parties, including the local community, the Board of Management, the Department of Education and RTE to this end.
She is in the process of organising a meeting between the Minister for Education, Batt O’Keefe, the Minister for Communications, Eamon Ryan, TDs for the area from all parties, and the Board of Management of the school to get cross-party agreement on a solution.
One possible solution would be for RTE to donate some of the Montrose land to be used as a school site, while another would involve RTE contributing towards the acquisition of a new site as part of the Community Gain for their planning application.
Lack of school places
St Mary’s is a school of the highest possible quality, with excellent teaching staff, but there is huge pressure on it. They have had to turn away large numbers of children because they simply do not have the space. While there are proposals to rebuild on the current site, in the long term the site is too small to serve the local community. Lucinda has been working to help the school secure an alternative site to help solve the problem.
Lucinda brought the matter up with the Minister for Education in the Dáil, asking for his cooperation in securing an adequate site. She then met with representatives of RTE and proposed that they offer some of the Montrose site to St. Mary’s, and she met with members of the Board of Management and the Parents’ Association of St. Mary’s. She will continue to work with all parties to broker an arrangement for the benefit of the community.
RTE Rezoning and Planning Application
Lucinda has proposed a potential long term solution. RTE has a massive site comprising 32 acres in Donnybrook and it is currently asking Dublin City Council to rezone the site from Z15 for institutional use to Z10, a much broader use. This would enable it to develop its lands and allow for the development of commercial, retail and residential units on the site.
RTE has also submitted an application for planning permission for the first phase of the redevelopment of the Montrose site. They have applied to replace the current buildings with a range of new buildings to the North of the site. Lucinda has made a submission to Dublin City Council regarding this application, voicing concerns about the effect that it will have on neighbouring properties and calling on RTE to use land which is ultimately state-owned to resolve the school space problem.
