Minister Joe O’Brien Welcomes Announcement State-of-the-art Further Education Campus to be Built in Swords

2nd December, 2022

Today it was announced that the green light has been given to a further education campus to be built in Fingal. The project envisages a state-of-the-art further education campus built in Swords.

 

The campus is the next stage of Dublin Dun Laoghaire ETB’s developing a College of The Future (COTF). The announcement was made by Simon Harris TD, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science

 

Welcoming the funding for the Campus in Swords, Joe O’Brien TD said:

 

“The new college affords the opportunity to build on existing Apprenticeship provision in Fingal and to specialise in sustainable construction, green skills and pre-apprenticeships for future jobs in the construction sector. The College will provide the necessary options to train, upskill and help workers to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the National Retrofitting Plan and build a regional centre for green skills.

“Building a sustainable campus that adheres to environmental best practice, when constructed the building will hold the highest BER rating and within two years of operation will hold ISO 14001 or equivalent. – will encourage and support all campuses withing the DDLETB FET College of the Future in Fingal to enhance sustainability on campuses.

 

“The new skills provided on the campus will be informed by national research and local research, including and specifically, the Fingal Skills Strategy 2019-2023 and the Balbriggan Socio-Economic Strategy 2019-2025 and balanced with the current provision in the other Fingal campuses in Blanchardstown, Baldoyle and Balbriggan. The facility will focus on meeting the needs of employers and potentially the Food Science and production and agri-food sector by providing access to places across fulltime and part time provision working with TU Dublin to build a pipeline of talent for this sector in the region.

 

“Building on the crucial inclusion pillar of FET provision and given Fingal has a high population 24.5% for non-Irish nationals and building on our experience as providers of English language to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers and certification of this provision through the DDLETB Cambridge Test centre, the only ETB to have such a facility, the new college facility will build a regional Centre of Excellence for Language provision for people who speak other languages. To ensure that migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have access to high quality education that will help them integrate within communities and secure and sustain employment. Targets for this objective will be set for a 3-year period on the commencement of the College operation.”