Vol. 569 No. 3
271 Mr. O'Dowd asked the Minister for Education and Science the position regarding the replacement of Fatima national school, Dublin Road, Drogheda, County Louth; and the position regarding immediate and urgent works required to be carried out on foot of recent correspondence from Drogheda Borough Council and the Health and Safety Authority. [17701/03]
Individual school authorities are responsible, in the first instance, for ensuring the safety and welfare of children and others in their care. Officials from my Department's building unit have, however, recently met the board of management of Scoil Mhuire Fatima, Drogheda, and requested that the board prepare a report prioritising the immediate improvement works required at the school. When this has been completed my Department will consider the report having regard to the scope for providing funding for the most urgent of these works from within the contingency sum for emergencies set out in the building programme.
The position in relation to the permanent accommodation project for Scoil Mhuire Fatima is that my Department does not intend to allow further large-scale projects into architectural planning during 2003. The timing of when individual projects, including Scoil Mhuire Fatima, can progress to architectural planning will depend on the budgetary allocation for 2004 and subsequent years, the rate of progress with existing projects in architectural planning and the priority afforded to each project by reference to the published criteria for prioritising large-scale building projects. In the meantime, individual schools should use their devolved grant to deal with the most urgent health and safety works.
