On 26 Feb 2025 the Board of Management of Corpus Christi National School applied for planning permission to renovate the hall for school use. This is a welcome next step in returing the hall to school and community use.
The application primarily covered the change of use of the existing Parish Hall to educational use and renovations to accommodate two mainstream classrooms and a Special Education Tuition Room.
Patrick Farrell on behalf of Save our Hall community group, Robert Shafer, Griffith Avenue & District Residents Association, and Cllr Feljin Jose all made observations on the application. A variety of points were covered but all observations mentioned the community use of the hall.
On the 16 Apr 2025 Dublin City Council requested more information from the applicant on:
- suitable acoustic measures to allow the simultaneous use of the hall and new classrooms
- detail on how transport (parking, drop offs, cycle parking, etc.) will be managed
- detail on how the Parish Hall will also retain a community use in accordance with objective QHSNO20.
The last point shows the importance of our rezoning petition to have the hall rezoned to Community and Social infrastructure in 2022 which led to the objective protecting the hall for community usage. Huge thanks to Declan Meenagh for leading on this objective and to all the DCC reps who supported it.
The Board of Management has confirmed that it intends to facilitate community use of the school after school hours and during the weekend. Having this commitment included in the planning application will ensure that community use is not curtailed at some future point.
We very look forward to our Hall being rightfully restored to the children of Corpus Christi National School and the wider Drumcondra community.