Bernard Allen
Question:59 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Education and Science when his Department will publish a database on school accommodation for each school and the position of each school in the school buildings list. [9219/02]
Written Answers. - School Accommodation.
Brendan Howlin
Question:64 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Education and Science the steps which have been taken to give effect to the recent commitment of the Taoiseach to survey all school buildings and establish a database of school accommodation. [9198/02]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 59 and 64 together.
In early 2001, the planning and building unit of my Department initiated the EU tender process for a pilot project to undertake a comprehensive inventory of accommodation of 115 primary and post-primary schools in County Kildare. The survey will include the production of site and building survey drawings and general building condition reports and the compilation of the resulting information on a geographic information system, GIS, database. It is intended that this inventory of school accommodation will be used for the long-term planning of capital provision through a precise and detailed identification of need in each of the individual schools surveyed; to enable priorities for capital provision to be identified; to enable the Department to identify schools with spare accommodation; for the long-term planning for the provision of schools in any particular location, such as, by interfacing with any existing database showing planned demographic growth; and as an information resource for the public.
The EU tender process for this project has been completed. The successful surveying teams commenced work in January, 2002 and over the next number of months, each school in the pilot area will be visited by suitably qualified personnel who will assess and report on site conditions, space norms within the schools and the overall condition of each school. Ultimately, all the data accumulated will be stored electronically on the geographic information system database and will be used to prioritise capital funding for first and second level school building projects. It is intended to use the experience gained in this phase of the project for a more focused expansion of the inventory nationwide.