The government wants to spend £3.6m to extend and refurbish the island’s Roman Catholic primary school.

Education, Sport and Culture Minister Graham Cregeen will ask Tynwald for the money for St Mary’s school at next week’s sitting.

The proposed expenditure on the school led to a heated debate in the House of Keys last week.

As the Examiner reported earlier this week, ’Children’s Champion’ and Garff MHK Daphne Caine contrasted the expenditure on St Mary’s with that on the island’s Church of England school.

She said she understood the Church of England had offered to pay the Department of Education, Sport and Culture up to 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the current St Thomas’s CofE school premises in central Douglas towards a new building, while the Roman Catholic Church had not offered to pay anything for St Mary’s.

The proposal to move St Thomas’s to a shared site with Scoill Vallajeelt on Meadow Crescent in Douglas will cost about £125,000.

Plans for the refurbishment and extension of St Mary’s were first unveiled in May last year, with pupils, parents and the public invited to comment on proposals.

The works are required due to the age of the building.

In addition, the increase in the island’s Filipino and Polish populations has led to more demand for a Roman Catholic primary school.

Currently, three mobiles classrooms are used at the site - between Somerset Road, Woodbourne Road and Ballaquayle Road in Douglas - to accommodate the current school roll.

The proposal would see five more classrooms added to the school along with an extension to the school hall and two existing classrooms.

Because it is built on a hill, St Mary’s has significant changes in floor levels throughout the building.

Two internal lifts would be installed to provide disabled access across the entire school, and additional disabled toilets provided.

Designed in a dated 1960s architectural style, the building would be completely re-clad to ’improve thermal efficiency and to modernise its appearance, creating a more contemporary and visually-appealing environment’.

A spokesman for the DESC said: ’It would also mean the original and new parts of the building match architecturally, using materials specifically selected to blend with the school’s surroundings.’

The roof covering would also be replaced, along with all external windows and doors.

Mr Cregeen said: ’This funding, if approved, would represent a major investment in primary education in the island’s capital.

’St Mary’s is a popular school with a strong track record, and the demand has been accommodated for a long time through the use of the mobile classrooms to supplement the permanent class-bases. We need to provide new additional permanent capacity at the school, so that these mobiles can be removed.

’The Isle of Man Government has a proud history of investing in the Island’s education facilities. A school is much more than its bricks and mortar, but its design plays an important role in the quality of children’s learning experience.

’The refurbishment and extensions would create a modern, inclusive teaching and learning environment, enabling the school to continue to provide primary education for many years to come at this site."

Planning permission for the alterations was granted in July 2017. The DESC hopes work will start later this month, with completion by August 2019.