Fianna Fáil Galway West by-election candidate, Cllr Cillian Keane, has backed calls from the St. Joseph’s Patrician College ‘The Bish’ school community for urgent progress on its long-awaited new school building project.
The candidate’s call follows the exclusion of the project in the Department’s first tranche of prioritised school construction projects for 2026/27.
The school, which currently accommodates approximately 791 students in a building originally designed for around 450, has been campaigning for the delivery of a new state-of-the-art campus at Dangan.
Speaking on the issue, Cllr Keane said he was disappointed to see the new school building for the Bish excluded from the Department’s latest prioritised construction list. Anyone familiar with the school and the pressures it is operating under knows the scale of the need here.
“Almost 800 students are currently being educated in a building designed for little over half that number. That is simply not sustainable into the future and I fully support the school community’s call for progress.”
Cllr Keane said the issue reflected wider pressures around infrastructure delivery in Galway and the need to move faster on major capital projects.
“Galway is a growing city and county. We need our educational infrastructure to keep pace with that growth and allow us to thrive in the future.
“The plans for the new campus in Dangan are ambitious and positive for the future of education in Galway. The school community has every right to feel frustrated at the lack of progress.”
Cllr Keane said that, if elected to Dáil Éireann, he would make the project a priority in his engagement with Government and the Department of Education.
“I will fight tooth and nail for this project and for the students, staff and families connected to the school. Galway needs strong representation within Government that will push these projects directly with Ministers and departments until they are delivered.
He also said the situation highlighted the importance of reforms aimed at accelerating infrastructure delivery more generally.
“One of the biggest frustrations people have across Galway is that projects everybody agrees are needed can still take years to progress. Whether it is schools, housing, transport or healthcare infrastructure, we need to become better at delivering essential projects in a timely manner.”
