The plans for the Day Care centre being examined by the workers on site at Greenhills.
As builders, Doohamlet Construction, moved onto the site, work got under way in conjunction with Eddie Phelan of VCL consultants and Conor Hogan, quantity surveyor.
Branch chairman, Noel Heeney, said : This, without doubt, is a dream come true for us. We are just so happy to finally get to this point. The aim now, Covid permitting, is to get the job done as quickly as possible and to get our clients into the brand new premises, he said.
Mr Heeney said there were times when the state of-the- art project had often seemed to be no more than a pipe-dream.
Students presented Noel Heeney and Helen Barron with their Dogs for Dementia project.
On any normal year the Transition Year students in St. Marys DS would have been visiting Tredagh Lodge twice weekly.
A pandemic, however, won t ever stop them from showing support to the clients and residents of the centre. Now more than ever it is important to keep that link alive and show the elderly living in our community that they haven t been forgotten and that we care about them, they stated.
In this brand new initiative, by St Mary s Diocesan School, all 96 Transition Year students fundraised to buy a soft dog Teddy for an elder living with dementia in the community. These are gifted to the residents and clients of local day care centres and nursing homes to improve their wellbeing in these unprecedented times.