04/11/08

To ask the Minister for Education and Science the breakdown of the amount spent per school in the provision and maintenance of prefabs in the north and east Cork area; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Minister Batt O'Keeffe

My Department has surveyed almost 900 primary schools across the country regarding their use of rented prefabricated accommodation and is in the process of compiling this information. The information gathered will be used to produce a database of information on rented prefabricated accommodation which will be maintained on an ongoing basis and will inform my Department's future decision-making in this area. This work is well advanced and I anticipate it will be completed shortly. When the information from the survey on rental of prefabricated accommodation is complete I will write to the Deputy. The information in the database will be available on a county by county basis, rather than by region within each county.

My Department provides grant-aid towards the provision of temporary school accommodation to the management authorities of education providers where it is established that a need for such temporary accommodation exists.

My Department has undertaken an assessment of the rental of temporary accommodation with a view to identifying the point at which purchase of such accommodation provides better value for money than rental. As a result of this assessment, my Department now has a policy of purchasing temporary accommodation where the need for this is likely to last for more than three years.

The Permanent Accommodation Scheme was introduced in 2003 to reduce the need for prefabs. It was designed to give value for money in terms of providing permanent accommodation in place of prefabs, where an accommodation need was likely to exist for a considerable length of time. Since its introduction, over €100m has been allocated to schools under the scheme and it has resulted in the provision of an additional 625 classrooms and 275 resource rooms in schools around the country. This is in addition to those classrooms provided under the major capital projects managed by my Department.

Had the Permanent Accommodation Scheme not been in place, a very significant proportion of those classrooms and resource rooms would have had to be provided using temporary accommodation such as prefabricated classrooms.

In July of this year I introduced a further innovation which allows those schools with an urgent and pressing need for additional accommodation and who are being given approval for grant-aid to avail of the option of using their grants to purchase prefabs or to construct permanent classrooms for the same amount.

Despite this, it will continue to be necessary for prefabricated accommodation to be provided because competing priorities mean that it will not always be possible to have a permanent accommodation solution in place in a short time-frame. My Department will continue to provide funding for such prefabricated accommodation and the decision on whether to rent or purchase will depend on the likely length of time it will be required. In all cases, the approach will be to ensure best value for money.

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