JOINT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND SCIENCE debate -
Thursday, 30 Jan 2003

Vol. 1 No. 3

Education Infrastructure: Presentation.

Chairman

I welcome Mr. Martin Hanevy, Assistant Secretary General in the Department of Education and Science, and Mr. Frank Wise, Mr. John Rigney, Ms Anne Killian, Mr. Larry McEvoy and Mr. Camillus Hogan from the planning and building unit. Before we commence proceedings, I must draw the visitors' attention to the fact that although members of the committee have absolute privilege, witnesses do not. Members are reminded of long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official in a way that makes him or her identifiable.

I invite Mr. Hanevy to commence the presentation, which we will try to keep to 15 minutes or thereabouts. We will be disturbed by a vote at about 12.35 p.m., by which time we will clearly not have completed business, and will recommence at 2 p.m.

Mr. Martin Hanevy

The context in which we were invited to address the committee was a discussion on investing in educational infrastructure through the concept of a schools modernisation fund. In this short presentation, I will seek to give the committee an appreciation and understanding of the types of factors and issues which drive the costs, needs and demands in first and second level sectors. I will address these individually, beginning with the primary sector.

At the outset, it is useful to consider that we have a relatively large number of primary schools, almost 3,200, in terms of the size of our population. The fact that slightly more than half these schools have four teachers or fewer is a key element which has significant cost implications given that one does not achieve the same economies of scale with small units as with larger units. The needs of a modern primary school curriculum, in which service is expanding into the realms of catering for children with special needs, visiting teachers and so forth and where teaching space for teachers is being withdrawn, must be provided for in the three teacher school to exactly the same extent as in a 12 teacher school. This is the landscape in which we operate.

The vast majority of schools with four teachers or fewer are in rural areas. One also has smaller schools in urban areas serving, for example, some of the minority communities. These factors can be described as the technical cost drivers. In the past three or four years inflation in the construction industry has also been a factor in determining how much we can deliver from our budget. Like anybody else seeking to build in the economy, we are price takers in the market. The upward trend in inflation has meant we have got less done for our buck than previously. There are indications that the trend is now turning and we are seeing moderation in some of the recent tenders we have received. If the inflationary position stabilises, we should get more done for a similar amount of money.

The number of listed buildings on the primary side is not significant, but it increases at second level. As the law of the land dictates that one must maintain listed buildings, modernising or improving such buildings is significantly more expensive than other projects. In terms of what I call local authority requirements, like anyone else building or constructing something, we must accept the charges local authorities impose on us, for example, those arising from the polluter pays principle. These requirements are a new element of schools building costs which we did not have ten to 15 years ago.

We also have higher safety standards and other regulations, which did not apply to schools building projects in, for example, 1980. Therefore, the cost of building schools increases as we meet these standards. Consider cost drivers which are more specific to the education sector or which come from the way we structure it, or how we are governed by the Education Act. In the past decade we have seen a reduction in the number of primary pupils and an increase in the number of teachers, and therefore the amount of teaching space required has grown. This is now stabilising, but may increase slightly.

The impact of where people choose to live or are forced to live must also be considered in light of the extension of the Dublin area into neighbouring counties and counties as far as Westmeath and Carlow. We are faced with building schools in places where nobody imagined they would be needed a decade ago, or where the existing schools will be hopelessly under capacity. One can have a stable population of schoolgoing children, but those children are not always located where schools were in the past.

Twenty or 25 years ago, when one spoke of primary schools one was effectively talking about schools either under the patronage of the Catholic bishop or perhaps the Church of Ireland bishop. However, the diversity underpinned by the Education Act and parental choice means that we are catering increasingly for multi-denominational schools, largely under what one might call the Educate Together umbrella, or gaelscoileanna

Site acquisition is an issue. In the past, the site was provided by the parish and the State did not have to do so. The parish contributed to a portion of the cost. However, the State now has to acquire the site for almost all new schools, and sometimes sites are extremely costly because they have to be bought at development land prices.

Many of the existing buildings, particularly the large cohort of smaller schools which will not disappear and which are part of the fabric of rural Ireland, have been in existence for a long time. Some of them may date back to the early 1900s. To upgrade them physically, make them capable of meeting the needs of a modern curriculum and end up with a stock of school buildings that are IT-equipped and prepared for all the challenges we face will require money.

The pupil-teacher ratio has lowered and extra resources have been delivered into special education. While the number of primary pupils is about 100,000 fewer than in the past decade, the number of primary teachers has increased from 20,000 to in excess of 24,000. This has lowered the pupil-teacher ratio from about 27:1 to below 20:1. A school with 100 pupils in 1990 had approximately four teachers but today it would certainly have five or maybe six, and probably an additional post allocated for learning support. That is what gives rise to many of the issues people have in school communities. A learning support teacher is probably forced, particularly in smaller units, to teach children under the coats of the cloakroom because the old tradition of building produced schools with only three or four classrooms. They probably do not even have a principal's office or space in which the principal could meet a visiting parent, nor do they have space for the psychologist, speech and language therapist or all the improved services that have come into being largely in the past decade.

Essentially, the capital side of the education business has been playing catch-up. It was playing catch-up historically during periods when the State could not invest and has been doing so in the past decade in respect of improvements that have been made in terms of human resources. The teaching posts that were delivered under the Programme for National Recovery, the PESP and the PCW were all delivered without the capital cost of the physical infrastructure having been reckoned with at the time when the policy measures were being agreed. That is an issue we must address in the future.

While all this must be considered under the budget of any given year, we are also dealing with issues that have imposed themselves on the landscape and which did not arise before, such as the remediation of problems concerning asbestos and radon and dust extraction in woodwork rooms of second level schools. In the primary and secondary sectors this year, we are spending approximately €16 million across those three areas.

An amount of the budget is compromised before one begins to commence a building project. At primary level, the devolved grant, which has existed for the past six years or so, enables schools do more minor works. This costs €18 million before one even starts to do anything more.

About 100 new schools are in temporary accommodation each year, the bulk of which come under the categories of Educate Together or gaelscoileanna. In crude terms, to get those 100 schools into permanent accommodation requires 100 sites, most of them in urban areas and many in cities. Then one has to build the schools. A conservative estimate of the cost of those schools alone amounts to €400 million, never mind the cost of modernising or dealing with the rationalisation of existing schools and the building projects that flow from these.

What have we been doing in terms of strategies to deal with this and to deliver value for money at the same time? We have been pushing the standard design template issue, which we will continue to do. We are also looking at the concept of the multi-school campus. Let us take, for example, one of the significant growth areas on the outskirts of Dublin, such as Littlepace. One has to anticipate that there might be a demand for a gaelscoil, Educate Together or maybe an existing provision. Instead of having three or four schools dotted around, one would attempt to have the different providers on the one campus with their classes, but sharing some of the common facilities. It is an attempt to achieve economies of scale. There will be tensions involved but we are examining the possibility in terms of what one can get for what the taxpayer gives one.

We are looking at the new small schools initiative, which was launched in this year's programme. It is grounded in the concept that the approach to establishing a new 16 teacher school may not be the optimal one for a smaller school. That is why we are devolving and empowering the schools with two, three and four teachers and allocating a funding envelope that allows them to deliver to their own agenda within a set of priorities that we identify. We do not want them to landscape the property at the expense of providing the space for the learning support teacher. Instead of imprisoning them within the system, steps and stages that apply to a more major build, we are trying a different approach. We are trying it with 20 schools this year and we will see what happens. If it works - we think it may - it will clearly have significant potential for expansion.

The PPP process holds some possibilities. It is applied at second level in the case of a pilot bundle of five schools. If it is to apply at primary level, it will be more appropriate in greenfield circumstances and in terms of bundling some of the larger units. Looking at what we have just done and at some of the experiences in the UK, PPP seems to work better in greenfield circumstances than in cases where people wish to upgrade. Another complication is that the State does not own the vast majority of the primary schools. An issue arises in terms of the extent to which the private market would want to engage there. We believe PPP may have a relevance in respect of the larger units that will be required in greenfield areas.

We are also examining design and build contracts, which involve reusing standard designs. One challenges the market to take the standard design and to build to it, possibly in bundles, the intention being to lever some market power to get better value for money.

Greater use of what we call pre-engineered building methods must be considered. The prefab can have a connotation, but we have been to see some of the more high-quality examples and there may be situations in which they would constitute the appropriate initial response, particularly if there is an uncertainty about the landscape in the longer term in the particular circumstances.

The inventory of accommodation is another key plank. We are attempting to build the database concerning the utilisation of accommodation, a pilot version of which was launched in Kildare in the past year. We are currently evaluating the programme and questions arise as to how it may be expanded given the available budget. It is aimed at maximising the utilisation of existing accommodation and at being able to identify accurately the state of play in any school to aid prioritisation.

In the primary sector the main issue is the adequacy of the funding. The allocation of the funding in a multi-annual framework is important if we are to plan at all. The stop-start basis on which school buildings have been dealt with since the foundation of the State is a fundamental obstacle to good planning. Apart from the issue of people knowing where they are - which is clearly an important consideration - things must be done in a coherent way. As matters stand, we have to put in place fire brigade solutions in many instances. If, however, the funding envelope had greater certainty and was within a five or six year timeframe, we would be confident that we could deliver better value for money in the longer term.

I made the point that accommodation costs need to be factored into the costing of other policy proposals, not just their current costs; otherwise one just reinvents the problem we are trying to solve. We also regard the publication of the programme as important. It provides clarity and transparency and shows people where they stand.

On the second level——

Chairman

I will stop the assistant secretary for the moment because we have run on to 17 or 18 minutes and I cannot help noticing that many of the details are quite similar.

Mr. Hanevy

That is correct.

Chairman

As I am sure Mr. Hanevy knows, some of the people most familiar with the programme are present. I accept that there will be questions on the second level programme. We will now listen to observations and questions.

Deputy Enright

I welcome everybody from the Department. There is no point in alluding to conditions in primary and post-primary schools throughout the country. I am sure the people working in the building unit are aware of these. I appreciate that economies of scale are involved, that the Department can work only with the money allocated to it and that it does not have responsibility in trying to procure additional funding.

The first matter to which Mr. Hanevy referred was construction industry inflation. He stated that the hopes this will stabilise, but the fact that costs in this respect have increased by 1% will certainly not help stabilisation to occur this year.

I was interested in the points made about listed buildings. I was in Cavan looking at some schools last week, where difficulties are being encountered with listed buildings. I am sure the position is the same in every county. How many schools in the building programme are listed buildings and what costs will be incurred as a result? In one of the schools I visited, I could not see anything apart from the exterior that needed to be protected. I know one can get a statement from the local authority to say what needs to be protected. What are the cost implications if only the exterior of a building is listed?

Mr. Hanevy also spoke of the costs of site acquisition. Where does the Department stand this year in light of the fact that only €5.5 million has been allocated in this regard? Obviously, if sites are in Dublin, Cork or Galway, most of the budget will be immediately eaten up by just a few schools. However, if the sites are in rural areas, the costs involved might not be as significant. How will the Department prioritise sites in this respect in terms of what we are told is to be done under the building programme? Under the current programme, at what stages are the schools implicated in site acquisition?

I am also concerned by the huge amount of money needed to solve the problems associated with asbestos, radon and dust extraction. Are any of the schools that require attention in these areas in need of extensions or refurbishment?

I welcome the need for a standard design. Starting from scratch with every school in terms of planning can be a huge waste of resources. It obviously depends on the style of the building that already exists, but there is considerable scope for a more standardised design and it would make sense to achieve the optimum design.

There are arguments both for and against the multi-school campus and it will probably work better in some areas than in others. I would not like to see a situation develop in which too many people in a town would be focused in one area. Some towns, because of the traffic situation therein, will not be able to cope adequately. Has the Department looked at how multi-school campuses will be managed? Obviously each school on the campus will have its own principal. Will there be an overall managerial body or manager or will each school operate individually? If the latter is the case, who will be in charge of the shared facilities? Will they be the responsibility of the Department?

I do not think the document brought out last week should be called a programme because a programme should list the running order. However, the document does not make us more aware of the running order, and this is the feeling I have been getting from schools around the country. I realise it requires an effort on the part of the Department and the Minister to let people know the position of every school, but people already knew, more or less, the position of their own school. The document, therefore, serves only as a comparison to let schools see where they stand relative to other schools.

The Department's programme has identified different bands and has stated the current band of each school. A school could be at band three and have received tenders, whereas a school at band one, thus being of higher priority, may not have received them. Assuming they are all listed in the programme at a stage of advanced architectural planning, if a school is at band one but tender documents have not been received, it will not be dealt with ahead of a school at band four in the case of which tender documents have been received. The programme is not a real outline of the positions of the schools because being at band one means that a school needs to be dealt with immediately. However, the Department may say, "Sorry, you are not far enough advanced in the process so, although a school at band four does not really need to be done, we have no choice but to proceed with it." Is there any way around that? If not, it is a fallacy to present the programme in this manner. The problem needs to be addressed.

There is considerable reference in the document to priority in terms of new schools with overcrowding or not enough facilities. A school in Sallins, County Kildare, for example, simply does not have places for 60 children next September and it is only at band two. The Department speaks of temporary accommodation, some of which is very good, but will funds be given to such schools while others are left in limbo because the budget is eaten up? Obviously the 60 children in Sallins will have to go somewhere next September. Where will they go? I know of an instance in my county where the same thing is happening because of pressures due to population growth and this needs to be addressed urgently. According to the first slide on second level, potentially there will be 100 fewer schools within 15 years. What schools are in mind and how will that work?

Mr. Hanevy

I put that in as a broad indicator of a changing landscape at second level more than primary level. There will be fewer. In the Deputy's constituency, agreement was reached in Ferbane and Banagher to reduce the number of schools from four to two. This is a result of the changing position of the religious orders - they will be unable to sustain trusteeships. That force, allied with the capacity of very small schools, of 200 pupils or less, to deliver the curriculum causes that dynamic. The impetus for rationalisation will come from the ground up. Two schools will demand improvements to their buildings and logic will dictate that we talk about a different solution. Many new buildings will still be required. We will not, however, see fewer schools in ten years at first level.

Deputy Enright

A phenomenon is developing at primary level. Parents have a constitutional entitlement to send their children wherever they chose. That is changing the way the system works because there is pressure for school extensions in some areas when there is space for the children closer to home but conditions might not be as good. There is a fear among those who have to accept temporary school accommodation. I was at one school recently in Tullamore where the temporary accommodation had been in place for 35 years. People do not want to accept this because they feel they go to the back of the queue if they do. Are there plans to give guarantees that a school will not lose its place in the building programme if temporary accommodation is provided?

Deputy O’Sullivan

Funding is the central aspect but there are different ways of thinking. The multi-school campus idea has merit. If schools can share facilities and co-operate, they should be encouraged. Forward planning is vital in this area. How much pressure can be applied to planners and those who applied for school buildings to do this? Who should take the initiative to ensure there is enough space to do it? We all agree current funding is insufficient. The INTO has suggested that €250 million per year for ten years is needed to bring primary schools up to the necessary standard. Does the Department agree with that figure?

There are currently 46 schools being built, 20 of which are pilot programmes, 12 are new developments at first level and 14 at second level. In the lists there are 549 at planning stage. Those schools still have to lobby their cases to make progress. They feel their cases are urgent and they want to ensure they will not be at the bottom of the list when the next tranche of funding is provided. Can anything be done about those schools that still face such uncertainty? What way is there to move up the bands? Does the scheme for the 20 small schools have more potential for development? Will it be cheaper? Can it be applied more widely than small schools alone?

Some schools do not have proactive principals or boards of management. A small Church of Ireland school in Limerick that is in a 600 year old building does not appear on any list. That is an example of a school in obvious need of attention but it has not been driven as much as other schools. Is it entirely up to the school to start the process? There is a survey of schools that have not made much progress but if a school does not make contact at an early stage, can it progress quickly? Is there a system whereby the Department contacts a school after parents have informed it that a school should push its case?

Chairman

Both Deputies have asked how schools make progress through the bands. It is predicated on the available finance but if 10% more is made available each year what would the situation then be?

Mr. Hanevy

I would link this to the question of people knowing where they stand. When there is a multi-annual framework with a degree of certainty, we can look about five years ahead and align the timing. It was not until the Book of Estimates was published in November that we knew precisely what we had to spend this year. We are in discussions with the Department of Finance about the concept of a four to five-year programme. The key is being aware of the framework of funding. Then you can make rational decisions on a better basis than before. All we could do this year was be very open about what we could do, about where everybody was at and where they see themselves going in the next 12 months. In many instances, that is not very far. We want to get to a multi-annual framework of whatever size.

Deputy Gogarty

I welcome our witnesses here today and thank them for giving up some of their valuable time. I will time myself so that I do not go on too long because I have a tendency to talk a lot. The overriding consideration in creating the various bands and allocating the budget is the level of funding available, and as Mr. Hanevy just stated, there is no certainty in this regard. That is the problem. From a political perspective, the decision on how much money to allocate to education rests with the Minister for Finance and his Department. The €343 million allocated this year may have been an increase on previous years, but given our growing needs, it is by no means enough.

It is not within the remit of the staff of the Department of Education and Science to be critical of the Government, even if they wanted to. However, given that everybody here, even Deputies and Senators on the Government side, wants to see more investment in education, it is worthwhile pointing that out and possibly making a few suggestions as to how the voodoo economics of the Government can be altered a little for the better.

First, I welcome the transparency of the report. As other speakers have said, there is no timeframe for schools that are not on the current list of forthcoming projects. In terms of planning and development, however, there is scope in the future for being a little more proactive. In urban areas, for example, there are areas of agricultural land. Under the current planning laws it is not possible to do so, but perhaps a recommendation could be made to the Government that agricultural land currently owned by developers have CPOs placed on it for school use. In my constituency, there is land at St. Edmundsbury owned by a developer called Ballymore Properties. Nearby, the Church of Ireland school, St. Andrews, wants to get some land but will not get land from the developer unless it builds housing on it also. There is scope for the Government to be proactive.

There is a strategic development zone in Adamstown where, initially, it was proposed to build two primary schools. Councillors, myself included, tabled a motion to get an extra school built. There are now going to be four primary schools and a secondary school built. We are trying to phase the project in so that a school has to be built before X number of houses are built. Again, the Department of Education and Science could be proactive in this regard. There are local area plans being put in place throughout the country for the development of land. If land for a school can be identified quickly and a proposal can be advanced to a stage where it is ready to go early rather than waiting five or six years for people to move into the houses, progress can me made.

I have a suggestion on multi-school campuses. The Green Party would very much welcome such developments, obviously taking the various managerial criteria into consideration. I made a suggestion to the Minister for Education and Science a few weeks ago that instead of focusing attention on public private partnerships, of which operators like Jarvis in the UK have received mixed reviews, there is scope to get involved in what the Greens would term a "public public partnership". Local authorities are constantly under pressure to build swimming pools, gymnasia, community buildings, meeting rooms and so on, and there is scope, on a planned and orderly basis, for representatives of the Department of Education and Science to meet local authorities to see where they have identified the need for such buildings and to possibly tie school buildings into those projects. This could include multi-school campuses. Thus, we could bring about, in a proactive way, the creation of multi-functional facilities that would include schools but also sports facilities for the benefit of the schools and local clubs. There would also be a security benefit in that the buildings would be in use until quite late in the evening, thus making the schools less likely to be vandalised.

These are just a few suggestions as to how money might be better spent. Economies of scale are a factor, particularly in urban areas. If there is sufficient population for proper public transport routing, it is feasible to have a number of schools and a sporting facility in one location. That may be a way to get around the funding problems.

Deputy Crowe

In terms of the schools building programme, I spoke to the Chairman prior to the meeting about my difficulty, as a member of this committee, in accessing the details of the building programme. On the day of the launch, for example, I rang the Department of Education and Science at 5 o'clock about my difficulty in accessing the report and was told it would be available on the Department's website. I was told that journalists could obtain hard copies of the report, but as a Deputy and member of this committee, I could not get a copy. Perhaps the Department officials will comment on that later.

I asked the Minister for Education and Science in a written question yesterday about computer facilities and science labs. I requested a list of schools that have such facilities and those that have not. Some of us are involved in the All-Party Friends of Science Group, and one of the difficulties it has noted is a lack of science labs and so on in girls' schools. The response from the Department was that it does not have a list of schools in possession of these facilities. Surely an audit needs to be done of all schools to identify what facilities are available? One hears stories of schools with computers stacked up in hallways and so on because there is no room for them. I ask, therefore, whether the Department plans to conduct an audit of all schools?

I am also concerned about the issue of asbestos, which is a concern of everybody in this room as well as of teachers and parents. Is it a priority of the Department to look at the schools that are afflicted with this problem, which may have long-term health effects on students and staff? The Department officials talked about value for money and about the schools modernisation programme. The programme for Government states that the schools modernisation programme will be financed through a national development agency and that this body will ensure the most appropriate use of public private partnerships in school projects. I do not necessarily agree with this as a way forward and do not think we are getting value for money from such projects.

One of the companies mentioned by Deputy Gogarty, Jarvis, does not have a great safety record. Look at its involvement in rail safety in Britain, including the Potters Bar incident, in which seven people were killed and 60 injured. The report on that incident was critical of Jarvis, concluding that it seemed to be more interested in profit than safety. This is one of the companies we are talking of allowing to build our schools.

I inquired about Jarvis, in respect of which a number of problems arose in Britain, in a recent question I tabled to the Minister for Education and Science, and the Minister indicated in his reply that a number of Department officials visited some of the schools in Britain. Have any of the delegates present visited schools in respect of which problems arose in Britain? If so, I would be interested to hear their findings.

I accept there are difficulties in the Department in this regard due to a lack of funding and that the public private partnerships are a genuine attempt to deal with the problems. However, I have a problem with partnerships in that they are like hire purchase agreements whereby we are putting off paying the inevitable cost to the State which is major. In replies to questions the Taoiseach indicated that the Department of Finance was uncomfortable with the amount of money being spent in this regard. We are talking about a cost of €215 million over 25 years in respect of five schools. I do not know if we are getting value for money. From where does the money to cover this cost come? Corporation tax was abolished. If the rate had been maintained at 16%, which was low, that would have covered the cost of two building programmes.

We should examine other ideas to cover the cost of such programmes. For instance, the sale of public bonds was a suggestion put forward to cover similar costs in Wales. The sale of public bonds is also used in US cities to fund major projects. Glas Cymru, a non-profit public company issued £2 billion worth of bonds to buy a utility for water services. That approach may be a way forward for the Department rather than going down the road of public private partnerships.

I thank the officials for attending. There has not been sufficient debate on public private partnerships. They have been used in the sector, for which Martin McGuinness has responsibility in the Six Counties, but the position there is different in that there is a lack of control over economic sovereignty there. We have an opportunity to examine different approaches here. Public private partnerships are the wrong way forward in this regard.

Chairman

Senator Liam Fitzgerald was due to contribute next, but he had to leave the meeting to attend to other business. Deputy Stanton and three other speakers as well as Deputy Hoctor indicated they wish to contribute. I ask members to confine their contributions to five minutes.

Deputy Hoctor

I extend a welcome to members of the building unit of the Department. In endeavouring to get elected to the Dáil, candidates are often in constant contact with members of the building unit of the Department. It is good to put faces to the names of people with whom I have been in contact.

I welcome the document launched by the Minister last week. Public representatives, and possibly staff, were not in a position for a long time to know about the stage of development of each school on the building programme. At least this is documented on paper now, which is a welcome move by the Department. Nevertheless, disappointment was expressed across the country in respect of various schools which are in a poor condition, which my colleagues mentioned.

I wish to refer to the acquisition of sites in respect of new schools. For example, a cheap site is available for acquisition in respect of Gaelscoil Bhríde in Thurles. It is a pity the Department will not examine the possibility of acquiring this centrally located site, which the landowner is under considerable pressure by developers to sell, even if the new school cannot be built for another four or five years, bearing in mind that a site will have to be acquired eventually for the provision of a new Gaelscoil. I ask the building unit of the Department to consider the acquisition of such sites.

Parents on boards of management of primary schools and principals have to contact the Department concerning the poor conditions of schools. Many boards of management requested school extensions five to eight years ago to which the Department agreed, but then it changed its mind and indicated that the architects and planners recommended that a new school should be provided. That delayed progress in the development and advancement of the provision of the necessary school accommodation. New schools are listed as required for certain schools in respect of which extensions were originally requested.

Chairman

A vote has been called in the Dáil. The Deputy has used half the time allocated for her contribution. We will suspend the meeting and when we resume, the Deputy will be in possession and she will be followed by Deputies Stanton, Andrews and McEllistrim and Senators Ulick Burke and Minihan.

Sitting suspended at 12.36 p.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.

Deputy Hoctor

I reiterate the last point I made before proceedings were suspended. It related to previous arrangements with the building unit and primary schools. Primary schools initially would have applied to the Department five, eight or ten years ago for extensions to their schools and, following assessment by the planning unit of the Department, it was deemed necessary to provide new schools. The process resulted in backlogs and schools, such as those at Annacarty and Ballinree in north Tipperary, are still waiting for approval for new buildings.

Nenagh vocational school is mentioned in the building programme. It is to receive roof repairs this year. However, it has been accepted by the Department that two new roofs, phase one and phase two, are required in the school. I sent a fax to the Department last week seeking clarification of what is meant by the term "roof repairs" in the context of that school. An unusual and precarious situation has arisen at the same school. It has been subject to major vandalism and insurance will not be provided for the school unless a night watchman is installed to supervise the property. The school has applied for palisade fencing to secure the boundaries. The cost of night security, if it is required continuously, far exceeds the cost of providing the fencing, but the building unit has dragged its heels with regard to the assurance of providing the fencing. There is a value for money issue here and I urge the Department to examine it. The cost of overnight supervision of the building under the insurance is approximately €80,000 per year, but the insurance will not cover the school building without such security until fencing is put in place.

I wish to mention the issue of voluntary secondary schools. There is a readiness in the Department to provide dust extraction, floor covering, desks and furniture, where needed, in vocational schools, which are at an extreme advantage with regard to funding. Voluntary secondary schools do not have the same funding. I understand it is the Minister's intention to provide an equal basis for funding. No doubt, as Mr. Hanevy mentioned, the trusteeship of voluntary secondary schools by religious orders will be called into question. Nevertheless, there has been blatant discrimination between voluntary secondary schools and VEC schools with regard to funding the provision of equipment. An obvious example is science laboratory equipment in voluntary secondary schools. It puts an enormous burden on the finances of such schools. Fundraising has to take place to ensure proper equipment is provided for science laboratories and, indeed, to supply floor covering and desks. That is not in the job description of the principals of voluntary secondary schools.

The Minister intends to promote the use of public private partnerships for school building. This is welcome. The local input of boards of management and local expertise and skills will be an asset. It will be an improvement of and an advantage to the building process for schools. Perhaps our guests will give us an update on this policy.

In the past it has been difficult to access the officials of the building unit, except for perhaps one or two hours in the afternoon at the Department. I ask that access to the unit be improved. Perhaps our guests will comment on that and, hopefully, give us a positive indication of when we can have easy access to these officials. I accept that the number of staff is limited, but I hope access will be considerably improved.

Deputy Stanton

I welcome the officials. My impression is that they are a little like meat in a sandwich, in that there are pressures on them from all sides. I know from my conversations with school principals throughout the country that the officials in the building unit do their best. At all times people from the schools are treated with courtesy and co-operation and I would be the first to say if it was otherwise. Indeed, I often get the impression that the staff in the building unit go above and beyond the actual demands on them for help. I acknowledge the pressures on the unit and our job is to see if we can assist in easing those pressures for everybody's benefit.

I have a number of questions. The agenda for today's meeting was to discuss the schools' modernisation fund. I understood there was such a fund, but I have not yet heard it mentioned. Perhaps it is just the overall package, but I would like that to be clarified. The impression might have been given that there is another fund that is separate from the main building fund. Perhaps the delegation would clarify what the schools' modernisation fund is and how big it is each year.

There is a need for multi-annual funding. It is the sensible option. The committee should examine the issue further. At this stage, I would recommend that it be proceeded with as quickly as possible. It would solve many problems where planning is concerned.

Chairman

We have agreed that.

Deputy Stanton

Schools are places where children go. People often get emotional about places children attend. Learning is important, but it will only take place if the atmosphere in and structures of primary and second level schools are right. It is difficult for learning and teaching to take place if the structures are cramped, damp and cold. We have heard stories about places which are rat infested. Perhaps the officials will tell us the situation in relation to schools. Are matters as bad as the media analysts suggest? Do some schools need emergency help?

I am impressed by what Deputy Gogarty said. We must consider using community centres and swimming pools. I have a problem with schools being used for a few hours a day for a few weeks in the year and then lying idle for the rest of the time. We should explore the possibility of schools being used by the wider community. Youth clubs throughout the country are crying out for premises. Is the building unit responsible for the provision of youth services? I know the Department is responsible for youth services in the State, but has the building unit any role in providing youth club facilities or youth centres? Has the Department considered the possibility of doubling up facilities?

The question was raised about the role of religious orders in education, particularly in second level schools. It seems more religious orders are beginning to walk away from schools, due mainly to a lack of members. What will it mean for the building unit and the Department when religious orders hand over the buildings to the State? Is that happening at present and what are the implications?

When new schools are being planned, is account taken of the need to conserve energy? We have a problem at present with the Kyoto agreement etc. Has the Department considered solar energy or other forms of heating? Is energy conservation factored into new plans? Energy conservation must be considered in relation to all public buildings.

All schools must be accessible for disabled students, parents, teachers and others in wheelchairs. Will the officials tell us how many schools around the country have problems in this area? What are the demands on the planning and building units to ensure that schools are accessible? I know one old school where a lift is being provided at a cost of approximately €250,000. Would it be more efficient to build a new single storey school instead of installing a lift at such a cost, particularly when there will still be problems with steps? Perhaps the officials will outline the situation in that regard. This issue will become bigger in the future.

Insurance was also mentioned. Does the cost of insurance impact on the building and planning units and, if so, how? Many schools in the list we received will not get help for a long time. I know there is pressure from all sides as people try to assist, but schools were living in hope that they would get help. However, they were suddenly told it would be years before that would happen. Is it possible to give these schools a timescale so that they know nothing will happen for two, three or five years unless changes occur in funding? It is not fair to school management, principals, students and parents to allow them to continue to hope. They will continue to contact their public representatives who, in turn, will try to put pressure on the Minister and the Department. It is a merry-go-round. I welcome what the Minister has done because it breaks that cycle a little, but it does not go far enough. In Youghal three second level schools were ready to amalgamate - we are all aware of the difficulties involved in amalgamation - but they have been told nothing will happen for the time being.

As regards public private partnerships, the Taoiseach raised questions in the Dáil about the value for money of such partnerships. Has any analysis been done in that regard? Would it be better for the State to borrow money or are PPPs a better option, given that they run the schools? We must be careful not to make a major mistake from which we cannot return.

As regards church lands, has the Department explored the possibility of acquiring such land? There seem to be acres of church land around the country. Perhaps it could be made available, as churches pull out, rather than being sold.

Senator U. Burke

I welcome the representatives from the Department of Education and Science. I do not want to repeat what has been said. As regards progress on projects throughout the country, County Galway and Galway city has the highest number of schools, after Dublin, at various stages of architectural planning. Boards of management and chairpersons of parents groups who have contacted the Department have been told that the Department does not have sufficient architects to do the work. An architect must visit a school to move the project forward.

The officials mentioned a funding envelope. That idea was promoted by this side of the House in recent years to allow small local projects to get off the ground with the approval of the Department. That would be less time-consuming for Department officials and back-up staff in the planning unit. What part does the inspectorate play in furthering the needs of such schools? The initial report from the inspectors seems to be essential to get the project up and running. When the inspectors visit the school, they must be fully aware of the situation.

We are supposed to be involved in improving the curriculum, particularly to include languages and science. Both of those areas demand extra space, facilities and manpower and new training. I was a member of a board of management and when small cheques were received, we did not know for what they were intended, although we eventually found out. There is funding to support various areas of education. However, that money cannot be spent. Support material, such as computers, are lying in boxes in corridors or cloakrooms in many national schools throughout the country. I do not know why someone in the Department, although not in the building unit, gets a contract to supply all schools indiscriminately with such materials. They are welcome to those who have the space and personnel to use them. However, until we get our act together, more expenditure on basic things at local level will greatly enhance the facilities to all those delivering the service. Basic requirements such as hot water and other hygiene facilities can be hidden under headings such as refurbishment and expansion. Teachers are trying to teach such matters, but they cannot operate them in practice. Children are crossing the schoolyard to use outdoor toilets with all the difficulties that presents. The situation will continue until the Department's building unit gets to grips with it.

The schools identified by the INTO as unfit for human habitation are very real and exist, particularly in rural areas. Last May many of those schools received letters from Government representatives on official Department notepaper saying "Your school is going to progress to the structural expenditure stage in a very short time". The most famous example of this, which caused real difficulties, involved a former Minister in County Westmeath and an aspiring general election candidate who said that this was coming down the line. This episode cost some people their seats in the Dáil, while other retained theirs. The Minister is now saying he will break the link with this kind of queue-jumping representation that has occurred in the past, through the publication of this document.

Does the Department of Education and Science have a policy on gaelscoileanna? Practically every urban area has a gaelscoil, which is a good development. In Ballinasloe, a shopping arcade with six small units has been set aside as the site for a gaelscoil project. However, it is totally unsuitable for the delivery of any form of education at any level. The site is available, but nothing has happened for the last four years. This is a tragedy because fantastic work has been done for all types of education through Gaeilge. Such difficulties must be identified and dealt with. Is it the case that the Department only reacts to pressure from public representatives or parent groups? The same situation exists in Loughrea and other areas.

Chairman

The Senator should conclude.

Senator U. Burke

I will finish on this point. What demands are being made on the Department's building unit to deliver facilities for the expansion of the education curriculum?

From the opening contribution, I got the idea that we have over 3,000 primary schools. Some small parishes have up to three primary schools and far be if from me to suggest that rationalisation is the way to go, but it may be in future. It is already taking place at second level. It will never take on at national school level, however, and I will explain why if the Chairman will bear with me for a moment.

In schools that have amalgamated in the past, undertakings were given by the Department that transport would be provided to take children from areas where a school was being closed to their new school. As a result of the Department's totally ridiculous adherence to rigid rules concerning nonsensical line of demarcation, however, such transport was not provided. Great distrust has arisen concerning the Department's follow-up procedures in providing such transport. Children who are marginally outside the catchment area cannot avail of school transport. The concept of school catchment areas must be re-examined due to the shift in population in rural areas. Such shifts are more obvious on the outskirts of Dublin due to the development of greenfield sites there.

If we continue with this situation without investigating the reality of some of the strict school transport rules and regulations, which are being applied with rigidity, national schools will not close down. People will retain an existing school even if there area only two pupils there, because they do not consider the Department reliable in terms of its delivering a transport service for amalgamated schools. The situation is unfair because we are not treating our children equally. Schools with space and personnel can have access to science and language teaching, while other national schools will never have such facilities. While the document is welcome, it does not indicate where we are going nationally.

Senator Minihan

I also welcome Mr. Hanevy. It is good to see him face-to-face as opposed to speaking to him on the telephone. I am sure we waste some of his time with our calls, but such is the concern within local communities that we find ourselves, as public representatives, continually trying to discover what is going on. I do not propose to go through the list of concerns I have about schools in my area. Some of the schools have been on waiting lists for development 17 or 18 years. The object of today's exercise is to discuss investment and to see if we can contribute something to bring about better facilities for everyone.

Mr. Hanevy referred to the local authority requirements in his introduction. I can understand the exigencies of planning restrictions, but are we talking here about contributions? I would be alarmed if, in coming to a planning decision, local authorities were using a facility to get major contributions into their own accounts. It is a bit like taking something out of one glass and putting it into another. I was not aware of that so I would like Mr. Hanevy to elaborate on it. While I appreciate that he probably cannot answer the question now, I would be interested, particularly in light of the amount of money involved, to obtain information on the relevant costings.

As a member of a local authority for a short period I would like to have a parting shot on that particular issue. I wish to state publicly that I would immediately table a motion in my local authority that all such contributions would cease forthwith in an effort to contribute to the overall programme. Having said that, I am conscious of contributions to be made. I am a critic of contributions with regard to the development of areas where large housing estates are built without proper facilities. I am concerned about facilities such as footpaths and lighting, particularly to the nearest bus route. We have been remiss in that respect.

I agree with the views expressed by previous speakers. If we are to make decisions for large urban areas and housing schemes, we must at an early stage identify sites for facilities, such as schools. I would have no difficulty with the idea of contributions towards the development of facilities to serve the common good of communities, such as schools or community halls.

Reference was made to the under-utilisation of schools during periods of closure. As public representatives, we are all frustrated in trying to secure the construction of community and scout halls at a time when some schools seek extra facilities, such as gymnasia. In this regard we are negligent in the proper utilisation of the facilities the Exchequer can sustain. We would all like to see independent school, scout and community halls, but there must be rationalisation of resources. We need to ensure there is community ownership of facilities to the benefit of all.

As a parent and local resident, I became chairman of an ad hoc school committee, a move that led to my involvement in politics. There had been a massive population increase in my area over a ten year period, rising from 2,000 to 15,000. Three national schools were built adjacent to each other. There was also a community college. We were racing to keep pace with developments but were unable to facilitate the number of students seeking to attend second level education. As an independent, apolitical chairman of the schools group——

Deputy Enright

Always independent?

Senator Minihan

At that time, until I saw the light. I discovered that one of the national schools was unable to fill classrooms because of changes in the population structure. The community school was beside this school and I decided the obvious solution was for the community school to take over portions of the national school. I was an Army officer at the time and I recall the parish priest contacting me by telephone and curtly telling me that he was the commanding officer in the village concerned and there would be no take-over of schools. This illustrates the difficulties that can be encountered in the pursuit of rationalisation. It raises the question as to whether there could be greater integration between primary, secondary and community schools.

I am shocked at the number of schools that have four teachers or fewer. Is there a cut-off point where realism dictates that convenience must be sacrificed for facilities in an attempt to amalgamate resources? Multi-annual budgeting is essential in any business or development to ensure it is possible to plan for the short, medium and long-term.

Valid points have been made on the question of religious and church lands. I advocate that lands should be subject to compulsory purchase orders to secure the building of schools, especially where area development plans are made. However, at a time when the religious are being subject to widespread criticism, I should point out that I was educated by religious orders at national and second level, for which I am grateful. Their huge role in the education system should be acknowledged.

Chairman

I am interested in the status of the INTO lists and the Department view on them. I am not sure if there is a meeting of minds on the issue. There is a crisis with temporary accommodation. I am aware of a number of schools with teachers and classes but with nowhere to put them. Is the list for 2003 comprehensive or is there flexibility in terms of accommodating teachers and classes?

Ultimately, amalgamations are efficient from several perspectives, not least that they lead to a substantial drop in wage and maintenance costs. In at least one instance in my constituency, which would possibly be suitable for a public private partnership approach, I am amazed it has not occurred. Every constituency probably has instances where there is local agreement on amalgamations, yet there is little evidence that these are being accommodated.

Many constituents, especially teachers, have told me that many small rural primary schools are of similar design. The most common is the rectangle with a corridor running the length of two or three classrooms with a small rectangular piece at each end which initially may have been a cloakroom and was subsequently converted to toilets. Beside that there is a window with a gable on one side and a wall on the other. If there are approximately 3,100 schools there must be close to 1,000 of these. Community groups frequently point out that at modest cost, a room could be provided at each end. Some have proceeded on that basis and have secured modest grants, often as little as €25,000, with the result that there is a place in the school for the resource or remedial teacher. There is much scope for proceeding on that basis at a very modest cost.

Is there an inventory of closed schools? I can think of at least half a dozen. In some cases the Department had a 99 or 199 year lease. In one case I understand it had a 999 year lease. While there is confusion as to who owns these schools, it appears that one mechanism would be for local authorities to acquire them by an agreed compulsory purchase order. They are valuable assets, not only in financial terms, and the fund would benefit if they could be sold.

Mr. Hanevy

The core issue here is the adequacy of funding. A modernisation fund is concerned with money to modernise, a term which covers many of the issues referred to. It places the stock of first and second level schools at a level they should have been at in the first decade of this century. It addresses issues such as science laboratories and specialist rooms at second level and disabled access. In addition it ensures that the basic fabric is electrically and structurally safe, that windows are not falling out etc. The science task force recommended that capital investment of approximately €175 million was required to bring the second level stock up to standard. It would have based this on the figures we provided, some of which were calculated from surveys and sample surveys.

The situation is similar at primary level, where we are involved in a catching up process. Extra teachers have been provided - the number is up from approximately 20,000 to 24,000 - and special needs have been addressed in various ways. However, the physical infrastructure has not kept pace.

Curricular change has occurred and, most often, the human resources in terms of teachers to meet the requirements of initiatives, such as the applied leaving certificate at second level, has been provided in addition to some capitation funding. However, no consideration has been given to the physical plant. We must learn from this for the future and cost all elements.

There was a question about the INTO's figure to solve the dispute. When we look at the landscape, if the modernisation issue is taken out, fair wind is given when rationalisation is agreed to make sure it happens within a reasonable time so that the agreement does not unravel. The Minister flagged his concern about that at the press conference. Within the programme even this year, priority is given to the move to architectural planning of those types of cases.

To deal with that, new schools and whatever else, our assessment is in each sector at current day prices. The cost for primary schools is €1 billion and it is €1.5 billion for post-primary schools. If we decide, as a nation, it takes ten years to do that amount of work with that much money, one can work out that the current level of funding will cover it eventually. If we decide we want to do it within five years, in other words, if a five year fund or envelope is created, it happens quicker. It is not rocket science to work out that the longer it is stretched, the more likely the response will be muddling as it has been for the nation for decades where one cannot be more proactive, coherent and get ahead. There will be cases where the prefab is erected and the new building is built later.

It is only when we determine whether it is a five or seven year fund with particular annual rounds that we will be in a position to say we are doing such a job this year, another next year and another the following year in this order and sequence. The rationalisation agreed in this town today will mean a new building in X year. That is as candid as I can be about it.

This is as significant a challenge as the State's roads programme, health strategy or anything else. It can only be bitten off in chunks because the other side is even. If we had €1.5 billion tomorrow we would not get value for money because we would overload the construction sector. There is a happy medium in there somewhere, and I would not necessarily fall out with the INTO's figure but it is talking about it in terms of biting it off in €250 million chunks for primary funding. That would take six years and that would not throw the capacity of the sector to cope with it without giving rise to significant inflation. That is what enables us to deal with the site acquisition issue in a more rational way if we know what is the funding landscape. That is what allows us with our inventory of accommodation to get ahead of the posse.

At second level, the withdrawal of religious orders relates to their lack of personnel, but significant work is going on among the major players such as the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy and the Presentation Order to work out how they continue those schools as voluntary secondary schools and the trusts with lay trust boards or whatever. It is not that such schools will disappear. They want to have the property and to preserve the ethos and tradition of education service delivery. That is what they are about but in all that there may be a dynamic for rationalisation in particular places if those issues come up.

I am open to correction but constitutionally one cannot put a CPO on church land. There is a constitutional protection for the position of the religious.

Senator Minihan

I did not suggest that.

Mr. Hanevy

Fine. Where churches make land available to us, in many instances they are bound by the fact that they are trusts and the price we must pay must go before the commissioners for charitable bequests so that, for instance, if a retired or dormant primary school is held by a diocesan trust the bishop cannot dispose of it on a whim. He must run it by the commissioners and they must sign off on it. That is part of the cut and thrust of what we do.

A number of questions relate to inflation in the sector, listed buildings and sustainable energy and conservation of heat, and I will ask Mr. McEvoy, a quantity surveyor in the unit, to address them.

Mr. Larry McEvoy

The question of construction inflation was raised. Anybody reading newspapers recently would think it was still running at 10% per annum but that is not the case. Construction inflation peaked at the beginning of 2001. It was running at between 10% and 12% in 1999 and at a similar level in 2000 but from the beginning of 2001 it has reduced rapidly. During last year there was a 5% drop in tender levels and, therefore, construction inflation is not a major factor. It is a little ironic, when we are in a position to obtain much better value, that we do not have the funds to do so. The percentage increase in VAT on construction projects would not be such a major factor if it had happened two years ago because it would have been absorbed by the drop in tender levels.

The question was asked as to why listed buildings are a major cost factor, particularly for second level. Listed buildings are often part of a campus and we have no choice but to deal with them as they stand. They attract costs which are often well outside our cost limits. One is dealing with specialist tradesmen such as stonemasons and window contractors, and the buildings could have copper or natural slate roofs and be constructed of materials not normally used in school buildings. Listed buildings may not be well planned from an area efficiency point of view and one could end up having to refurbish a building while the cost could be much smaller if it was replaced with a new building. The costs per square metre add up. Timber floors may not be strong enough and require specialist treatment. It can be difficult to comply with fire regulations in listed buildings and costly systems may be required.

Deputy Stanton referred to energy consumption and the Kyoto agreement. We have a pilot project under way in Tullamore where we are building two schools using sustainable design strategy. They are highly insulated timber frame buildings and make maximum use of natural light and ventilation and ground water heating. Many of these features can cost more than the old way of doing things but they will pay back over the life of the building. We hope to monitor them when they come into use to see what features may be usefully brought into the standard building programme. Our normal building guidelines emphasise the need for maximum use of natural light and ventilation because building designs that need a great deal of mechanical ventilation in toilet areas and so on cost a lot of money to run. We look to maximise those factors in our normal guidelines.

Deputy Stanton referred to installing a lift in a building that was not worth doing up. We always benchmark our projects against new building costs and we try not to waste money on buildings that are not worth keeping, that is, if they are not listed. We look at all aspects of the project from the point of view of cost and the most economical solution for that building.

Chairman

I understand the assistant secretary has another commitment to fulfil elsewhere fairly soon.

Mr. Hanevy

I am at the Chairman's disposal.

Chairman

Mr. Hanevy should feel free to leave whenever he wishes. Deputy Andrews sat through the entire morning session and missed out on his slot. Does he wish to raise any points at this stage?

Deputy Andrews

I want to ask some questions about public private partnerships and I apologise if they have already been posed. In the UK, I understand the PFI idea has operated well with regard to rail and roads but not so well in hospitals and schools. What is Mr. Hanevy's analysis of the position there?

How long does he believe it will take before the effectiveness of PPPs can be assessed? What is the period within which the system must bed down in order to find whether it is cost-effective and working on the ground? As Deputy Crowe mentioned, the costs are to be borne down the road rather than immediately and that is perhaps the attraction of it. The Minister has indicated that he will make announcements about PPPs later in the year. Mr. Hanevy might fit that into his answer on my second point.

Mr. Hanevy

I had PPPs marked out as an area on which to respond and I will follow the sequence I had planned. Deputy Enright referred to the issue of parents passing by a school to go to the next one, something that can cause pressure on accommodation. That is something of which we are aware and it is a value for money issue in that there should not be spare capacity in one school. To be candid, however, our instinct is that sometimes the quality of teaching, or the perception of that, can be the issue. That is something my Department can put its hands up on, but, equally, the education system in general is at fault because there are all sorts of tensions about the required solutions. I do not need to expand on that, but there are issues with regard to evaluation and the quality agenda.

The Department's strategy statement for this year will have issues of quality at its forefront. Parents can move because their antenna pick up things that the system stays silent about and fails to manage. I suspect it is more often the quality of teaching and learning that may cause choices to be made than the fabric of the building.

In our initial inventory, which was done in one county - this picks up on the Chairman's point about the INTO list - there are unquestionably schools in poor physical condition. It is our position that the more important issue in the 10% of schools we looked at is that of teaching space, although I do not want to diminish the issue of conditions. The ancillary aspects that support the teaching of a modern curriculum, such as extra classrooms, is the bigger issue in many instances.

The problem of rats is an issue for school management. I have had rats in my house and I put out rat poison. Rats cause problems of hygiene and where there is a rodent infestation - and it is widening due to a lack of hot water - cracked toilet bowls or the type of things that lead Members to put down parliamentary questions, the Department's first question is what is happening with regard to the minor works grant? This year, a sizeable number of places will be audited and checked because €3,870 per annum has gone out as the floor sum. Preliminary checks have suggested that some of that money is lying in bank accounts.

Senator U. Burke

The reverend chairman has it.

Mr. Hanevy

Yes, or to be fair, in some instances people will tell the Department that they were promised a new school and felt it would be waste to spend the money on the old one. That is fine, but some of that fundamental stuff should be easily dealt with by the minor works grant. The grant was put in place so that schools would not have to write to the Department for a new wash-hand basin and so they could take the money and deal with the problem.

To clarify matters, the Department has planning guidelines which are the template for a brand new school and they were re-devised in 1999 in curricular terms. The INTO, for its own reasons, will benchmark all that is currently against it. When Toyota Ireland or Ford bring out the newest car model, they do not say that last year's model is obsolescent; it remains a reasonably functioning car, though it may need some additions. Many schools are in reasonable condition. If they are benchmarked against the blueprint for what is wanted in the future, pitching to best international standards, it is possible to label them as sub-standard but I am tilting at the use of the term "sub-standard". I stress that I am not trying to diminish that there are schools in very poor physical condition.

I will hand over to Mr. Rigney to pick up on issues regarding the Department's interaction with local authorities and reserving a site, as there has been a common link from some speakers.

Mr. John Rigney

Engagement with the local authority does happen and is happening as we speak, particularly in the greater Dublin area and the Cork region. Specifically, as I understand from the planning unit in the Department, there are frequent meetings involving the local authorities and our planners in which they identify demographic shifts, etc. More critically, they are trying to identity what impact demographic shifts will have in terms of infrastructure at both local authority and departmental level. Attempts are being made to identify sites that will be suitable for school developments and one Member mentioned Adamstown as an example.

A good example of what I am talking about is the engagement that needs to happen between the Department and local authorities and that is occurring to a significant extent in the greater Dublin area and to a lesser extent in Cork. I am not 100% certain as to what routinely happens outside the two larger areas.

On engagement in general, many people have mentioned the use of school facilities for multiple purposes and the fact that schools should not be places which are simply locked up at 4 p.m. or not used for 160 days of the year. The Department is trying to routinely provide PE halls and deliver new facilities, at second level schools in particular, and is endeavouring to acquire sites which are of sufficiently large scale so that playing pitches can be accommodated.

A situation is desired where there is partnership with local authorities so that the community benefits, not just from the educational dimension attached to the facility but also from the wider community use of facilities outside school hours. After school hours, people, clubs and organisations should be able to access a school hall for various reasons. Likewise, playing fields should not be locked up after 4 p.m. and never accessed. We encourage school authorities to see if there is any way in which they can make their facilities available outside school hours. We are trying to work with local authorities so that they, in so far as possible, meet us in some manner in terms of financial contributions to the facilities, with the quid pro quo being that they have a payback with regard to access to the facilities.

We have been trying to engage with some individual local authorities in the greater Dublin area and have not been getting the sort of response we would have liked. We have genuine concerns about the fact that, in some areas of greater Dublin, there will be duplication of facilities and perhaps new facilities put in place while existing facilities attaching to second level schools, with some co-funding between ourselves and the local authority, might serve the purpose as well in the future.

I will briefly return to the issue of engagement with local authorities on the sites issue. Although we might succeed, with the assistance of the local authorities in identifying a site suitable for school provision, it does not automatically follow that we can acquire the site at a significantly reduced price. We often pay standard market values for the properties. The co-operation of local authorities is nonetheless very helpful for us when identifying sites.

Mr. Hanevy

I wish to pick up on a couple of other matters that were mentioned before Mr. Wise speaks about asbestos and Mr. Rigney speaks about radon. A number of speakers commented on the campus issue and asked how shared facilities could be managed. If one places three different types of school on the same campus, three boards of management, representing three schools with individual rights in terms of their ethos and delivery of an education service, would be involved. There is a number of possible approaches to the question of who pays for light and heat and is responsible for the upkeep of the grass and footpaths.

The facilities management that came with the PPP model facilitates a potential bundle of primary school PPPs, although conventional procurement does not preclude facilities management being contracted in subsequently. It is becoming more common to live in an apartment - I live in one in Dublin and I pay the bin charge. A portion of capitation funding will fund the handling of facilities management by someone else, meaning that a great deal of the contention about management and caretaking will be removed. There are solutions to the problems that have been mentioned.

Senator Minihan asked about positions on local authorities. Mr. Rigney will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think there is a uniform position throughout the country. At the risk of delaying projects, we have sometimes appealed certain planning conditions to An Bord Pleanála, such as the requirement to contribute to funding for the realignment of national roads, the provision of footpaths and street lights, added sewer capacity and drains for the water supply. In some cases, local authorities are fortified by EU directives, such as the polluter pays principle, which does not discriminate between public and private sector polluters.

I had some slight unease, to be candid, when I became aware of one or two of these matters during the course of the past year. I wondered if there was an attempt to be a little more forceful on the basis that a State agent was involved. This issue has added to our costs - it was not part of the landscape when schools were being built 15 or 20 years ago.

Deputy Crowe asked a question about safety issues in relation to asbestos and radon and I will allow Mr. Wise to deal with that.

Mr. Frank Wise

We took a decision about two years ago to implement a nationwide asbestos remediation programme, in conjunction with the Office of Public Works, which is engaged in asbestos remediation in all public buildings, in effect. Almost half of the programme has been completed - 2,000 of the 4,000 primary and post-primary schools have been tested for asbestos. Of the 2,000 that have been tested, approximately 800 have been identified as requiring asbestos to be removed. The asbestos was generally contained in areas of the school to which children would not have access, such as boiler houses. We decided, even in the context of tightening financial circumstances, that this matter should be treated as a priority and we intend to continue with the programme, to which €5.5 million has been allocated in 2003. It is estimated, at the current rate, that the programme will have been finished by the end of 2004, give or take a few months. It is being treated on a priority basis and arrangements are being made to remove material that is in a friable condition quickly.

Deputy Crowe raised the issue of the timing of publication of the programme. A press embargo was placed on the document at 4 p.m. The planning and building unit was extremely anxious to place the details of the programme on the Department's website as quickly as possible, in view of the enormous level of interest among schools, as shown by the number of inquiries that has been received. The Minister agreed that the details should be posted on the Internet as soon as the press conference was finished and this happened shortly after 5 p.m. on the day of publication.

Deputies Enright and O'Sullivan and the Chair referred to the small schools initiative. The Department's basic analysis in relation to the initiative is that schools of four classrooms or less are, in effect, no greater in size than average domestic dwelling houses and should be dealt with at local level without undue and heavy departmental involvement. The Department has been criticised for being too involved in certain issues, not only in the context of the building unit but also of the Cromien report into the structure of the Department. We decided to formulate a scheme that means that the Department adopts a hands-off attitude. It will outline its priorities to schools and make clear that a certain amount of money - between €100,000 and €300,000 - will be made available depending on the size of the school, the amount of accommodation to be provided and the condition of the school.

The Department has to ensure value for money, proper standards and adherence with a range of health and safety regulations. This will be done by empowering the school to engage itself at local level, at its own discretion, with local professional persons who will assist them in formulating whatever is required to deliver the accommodation. The Department will examine in a careful manner what happens at the end of the process by looking at what has been provided in the 20 schools and scrutinising whether it has been provided in a proper manner, in accordance with health and safety legislation and planning regulations. We will make a decision about whether to extend the scheme at that stage. The thrust of the scheme is to empower schools to deal with problems themselves, to the extent that they can.

Deputy O'Sullivan raised the question of whether the scheme will be extended further. There is no reason, in principle, it should not be extended further. The Department meets the INTO twice a year and the question of the provision of training to help school officials to be able to deliver on their obligations under the scheme was raised at one such meeting. I am conscious of the importance of this issue and the Department hopes, if the scheme is successful, to extend it much more widely. As part of that process, we will help those involved to do what needs to be done. If all goes well and there are no major hiccups, we hope to deal with the 50% of all primary schools with four classrooms or less through this devolved mechanism.

One of the things I have emphasised to the INTO during our regular meetings is that it cannot confuse the putting in place of proper mechanisms to ensure that renovations are organised at local level with the replacement of a full school. Sometimes what is required is a proper maintenance regime. The only hard statistics available to us relate to inventory of accommodation, which we have completed on the schools in Kildare and which we are currently assessing. In answer to Deputy Stanton, depending on the outcome of the assessment, we intend to extend the inventory to all schools.

The basic feedback in relation to standards of maintenance is that approximately 11% of schools have been assessed as having a good standard of maintenance, 80% as having a satisfactory standard of maintenance and 9% of primary schools as having a poor standard of maintenance. I suspect considerable difficulties arise in respect of the 9%. It was not the Department itself which undertook the assessment, it was an external group engaged by us under a competitive tendering process. Therefore, it is independent.

I thank Deputy Stanton for the kind words in his opening remarks. I will convey them directly to the people who deal with school projects on a day-to-day basis.

Mr. Hanevy

I would like to pick up on a few other strands and deal with the PPP issue in a bit more detail. There was reference to whether we could do more if we had more architects. If one looks at the programme one will see that there are more projects on the runway than there is funding. The Minister used the same term. In the period 1997 to this year, there was a quadrupling of funding and the volume increased to match that. That was dealt with very effectively by a stable team of architects, which indicates that efficiency measures have been found and the wider use of devolution, about which Mr. Wise spoke, has a clear role to play.

Deputy Hoctor made a point about access to the building unit. One of the measures we are hoping will come from publication of the programme, even where it is bad news, is that in January 2003, people will know what will happen in 2003. It will be futile for school communities to ring up staff of the Department. This is something the Department is trying to do with many aspects of its business, whether these include issues to do with school transport or whatever. This relates to having in place independent structures - the same applies to teacher allocations - so that the time of officials will not be spent responding to people who believe that he who shouts loudest or bends the ear most will get there. More certainty in relation to how things are done has been enshrined in the regulations, whether allocating teachers or whatever, and if one feels that he or she has been dealt with wrongly administratively, he or she will have access to an independent appeals process. We could stay on the phones all day telling people where things stand and not get to the files that might move along some of them.

Deputy O'Sullivan asked do we miss a school if there is no local voice. The answer is that we potentially do, but if for any reason something comes to our attention - this relates to radon and asbestos which was the first call on this year's funding - it should proceed at the pace at which it was planned to proceed in terms of the Office of Public Works's delivery. Equally, if our inspectors come back and say there is a serious risk to the safety of children in a school and the board does not seem to be doing anything, we will begin to put pressure on the board. That is the first principle. We must guard against someone who might decide if they turn it into a safety issue it might expedite their project. Clearly where demand has always exceeded supply, where schools throughout the country with extra teachers have not space and so on, those who have applied come to our attention more quickly than those who have not sought it.

In regard to PPPs, the first thing to stress is that what we have done is introduced a pilot phase. If there is another project, I think it will be a pilot phase. The PPP territory is complex. I have been reading the report of the UK audit office, and the Comptroller and Auditor General will soon publish a report on the bundle of five pilot schools. The core concept here is the other side of the coin in regard to what went on in the 1980s, that is, the low cost, high maintenance school, which led to all the problems 30 years on. This is predicated on the assumption of transferring the risk involved in the design, build, finance and operate to the private sector. We have had public private partnerships even in the conventional model, except it has not been finance and operate. The private sector built the schools while the State funded them. If one takes the whole life cycle of a school and shifts the risk, and we only pay for performance, and if any of the existing five schools cease to function, Jarvis gets hit under unitary payments. They must deliver a working school. We are not in there up front as with a conventional project, saying it is designed to make sure X, Y and Z happens. They must deliver to an output specification in terms of pupils and what is required in laboratories, classrooms and so on.

The UK audit office acknowledges that one can only evaluate so much of this. We can now evaluate in broad terms what has happened within the construction phase and so on. The project up-front must be tested before it gets approval against what is called the public sector comparator That is a highly technical document which attempts to compare what is coming in from the PPP developer. The public sector comparator then attempts to construct what would have happened if the same thing was being delivered in the original way. On the schools bundle and on the projects, the public sector comparator test has held up. It has been better value for money.

It is only as these roll out - this is the first year in operation of the bundle of five schools - that we will see whether, on the thesis, the risks transfer, dealing with under-performance and penalising, and whether we are supposed to take over a school at the end of 25 years - we can buy it out earlier if we want - which is absolutely maintained to the last and has a life beyond that. The issue of what has to come is related to the intrinsic issues of the PPPs and how EUROSTAT treats the general Government balance. There is a whole landscape there. It is part of the discussions with the Department of Finance about the five year funding envelope and the mix.

I had one significant session with the Department of Finance and I was largely doing with them what I have done with this committee today. I tried to get consensus about what must be done, followed by a debate, negotiations and arguments about how quickly we can do it and where funding will come from. They must make judgments, as does the Government, about where the priorities lie and how things are funded. As a first step, I would like to think that today might have contributed to the consensus for members of the committee charged with looking at issues in the education sector. If we all have clarity about the issues, it might be easier to craft the solution. Issues such as rats are a sort of side show, there are more fundamental issues.

Chairman

Thank you. Is there any issue arising from that contribution?

Senator Minihan

I wish to clarify one issue in regard to CPOs. What I was referring to did not relate to plans. I said, in the context of development plans in local authority areas when rezoning lands, that we should identify lands to which CPOs would apply for schools.

Chairman

Does Deputy Gogarty wish to make the same point?

Deputy Gogarty

I have two questions. Is the devolved grant of approximately €5,000 for a 100 person school and €10,000 for a 500 person school enough or is it making the best use of the funds available? Would it be better, for example, to increase the devolved grant and tell schools they have this amount of money for a year and that it will be taken back if it is not spent within the year? This might encourage schools that are not at crisis point to spend more.

My second question also relates to PPPs. When analysing value for money over a period of time is the wider social capital taken into account? For example, if a Jarvis run school opens its facilities to the community but charges for this service to make a profit this will impose an additional cost on the community. Is this taken into account when calculating the overall price?

Mr. Hanevy

I do not know the technical answer to that but I will make a related point because there was some discussion about opening up facilities. Bearing in mind that most schools are State aided as distinct from State owned, when they are opened up issues of insurance costs arise. One of the points we are starting to make to schools where a PE hall or gymnasium is being built is that these must be run on a business model. Whether services are provided for simple profit or for profit to defray school expenses, the school capitation grant cannot subsidise the local volley ball club because, for example, the provision of heat and light is not properly costed. Insurance is becoming a big issue. The voluntary secondary school I attended, where the hall was provided by private funding and not by the State, has had to terminate indoor football after one or two adverse claims.

Regarding the position of voluntary secondary schools versus VEC schools, we do not discriminate regarding the capital budget in any way. The demand for a building in one place is treated the same as another, whether community, comprehensive, voluntary secondary school or whatever. However, there is a historical issue regarding the adequacy of maintenance funding. There is a clear policy thrust for equalisation. The Blackstock report underpins that. There have been measures, particularly in the past two years, which have led to stepped changes, and secondary schools would acknowledge that.

Mr. Wise

On the devolved grant, we intend undertaking a thorough assessment and one of the focuses of the assessment will be the age of schools, the requirements of an older school versus those of a new school and whether newer schools should get the grant. We must be careful. One could say a newer school does not require a devolved grant, end of story.

Deputy Gogarty

Perhaps there are different bands of requirement.

Mr. Wise

Exactly. In five or seven years' time a school might have bad accommodation because it did not have the money to refurbish. These are the issues we will be addressing in the context of the very detailed review we will be undertaking.

Deputy Gogarty

Is that this year?

Mr. Wise

This year.

Mr. Hanevy

By the autumn.

Deputy Stanton

The Department has a youth affairs section with responsibility for youth affairs in the State. Has the building unit a role in the building of youth clubs and youth centres and, if not, who does? Under the Youth Work Act, vocational education committees will be given responsibility for local youth services. There is a dearth of facilities and I wonder who is responsible for that?

My earlier question was answered but not fully. How much of a problem is disability access, particularly in older schools, and what kinds of demands is this placing on the State and the Department? Disability access is crucially important and must be provided.

Many schools have been long-fingered while money has been provided for what I call patching. Some schools have been given money to patch up their existing difficulties. Is that merely throwing good money after bad? Where new schools were hoped and planned for they are not being provided, yet a considerable amount of money is being spent on keeping old schools going. This seems bad economics in the long-term.

Mr. Hanevy

That is a fair point. What we have been trying to say today is that the longer we are dealing with the over-arching issue the more likely ropy things will happen along the way or there will be rock-and-hard-place decisions. Suppose it happens, for example, a child who is wheelchair bound goes to a school and this requires a lift or certain works. It might make more sense if the school was not in a two-storey building but that solution is so far down the stream that one must take measures in the meantime. Similarly, it is sometimes necessary to do immediate repairs to electrical wiring to make a building safe. We do not know what will be possible because we do not have a five year fund. The five year fund need not be locked away somewhere else. It could be simply ring-fenced in the context of an understanding between the Department and the Department of Health and Children about what is going to come in five successive budgets.

Mr. Wise

Regarding the figures for disabled access for primary schools, we spent approximately €10 million on smaller health and safety projects. A number of these involve access for children with disabilities and we treat them as an absolute priority. We are making a sum of €2.2 million available for access at post-primary level in 2003. This is listed in the programme for Government. The amount for the primary side is not listed in the programme because very small amounts of money are involved and such listing is not warranted. However, they are treated as a priority for funding. They include grants for access ramps and the refurbishment of toilets to cater for children with disabilities.

Mr. Rigney

To pick up on Mr. Frank Wise's points regarding disability access in primary schools, it is also fundamental on the post-primary side that we provide access for all. This is not only in new buildings coming on stream where it is part of building regulations in any event, but also in existing schools. When we know, for example, that a child in sixth class in primary school will be attending a particular secondary school the following year we make arrangements for the provision of grants, for lifts and so on, in good time.

Deputy Gogarty made the point that these lifts are extremely expensive and he mentioned the sum of €250,000 in a particular school. They can be as expensive as that. However, this work is a priority and we just do it and get on with it.

Deputy Stanton

What about the youth affairs section?

Mr. Hanevy

We have a dedicated youth affairs division and it has funding lines. Without being able to confirm this for the Deputy I suspect that, as with many other issues, we have been better at providing human resources than at tagging the underpinning capital.

Deputy Crowe

The question of public private partnerships is important because it relates to the future direction of education. I know that officials of the Department made a trip to Britain. Did they look at the schools where there are problems? In the north of England, for example, there have been accusations of cost cutting and poor workmanship.

Mr. Hanevy

None of us here was on that visit. I did not bring people from the PPP unit to this meeting because I was not anticipating questions on that subject. I was focusing on the modernisation fund issue. One must differentiate between the places in Britain where new schools were being built, as with our bundle of five, and where they were using the PPP model to refurbish existing schools. Difficulties arose, for example, when PPP developers were refurbishing while the school was running. One of the things we have been better at in our bundle of five - I base this on the auditor commission's report over there - is that we consulted the players on the ground. The five school principals were heavily involved in the user requirements definition. One of the recommendations in Britain is that that should be done more in the future.

This is a learning curve and I would not advise anyone to stampede into it. We must look at the situation regarding the five schools. Anything attempted has to stand up to the public sector comparison or it will die, especially if it does not pass the value for money test. However, if this was extended to primary schools, there are issues as to whether it is precisely the model used in the first five secondary schools.

Deputy Crowe

In Britain, there seems to be a move away from this model. With regard to the UK health service, it seems that 10p in every pound will be used to pay for it.

Mr. Hanevy

There is a clear issue here. One part of this concerns the mortgage principle and the way in which people buy their houses. However, in our first bundle there was more than that involved. There was the issue of whether it is ultimately better if they only get paid if there is a fully functioning school and whether, if the roof leaks at any time over 25 years, it costs them. Is that model better than the traditional model where a design team and builder got a contract, that was finished when they handed the school over, and then it was discovered that the radiators were not working five years later? If the radiators do not work in Tubercurry, Jarvis do not get paid and it is its risk as to what it will cost to put in new ones that will work.

Deputy Crowe

The other question I asked related to the example of facilities in schools. Will there be an audit at some stage with regard to some schools not having a science laboratory and so on? It is crazy that the Department does not know what facilities schools have.

Mr. Hanevy

The inventory is part of that but it is a chicken and egg situation. The assessment done by the science task force group, which was outside the Department under the chairmanship of Professor O'Hare, came up with the figure of €175 million using the data available. That is equivalent to the entire second level provision for this year. When we have the €175 million, it will be a lovely job to make sure that every school has just as much as it needs, no more and no less.

I hope I am being forthright. The work was done to assess what reasonably was needed. That is how I came up with the figure of €1.5 million with regard to the secondary sector to put all the schools at the standard required to deal with science, ICT and other facilities that schools need at this time.

Mr. Wise

It is intended to undertake the inventory and that has been done on a pilot basis in Kildare. It is being completely assessed and, subject to that assessment, the Department quickly hopes to move to doing this around the country. That will then give us a detailed corpus of information on a geographic information system, exactly the type of information that would be required with regard to the number of science laboratories in all schools, including the percentage without laboratories, without DP rooms or which require additional space etc. There are many elements which we will have detailed information on when the inventory of accommodation has been completed.

There is obviously a cost attached to such an inventory because of how it will be approached. It is not necessarily a cheap thing to do. We are trying to identify the main elements required and tailor that to the amount of money available.

Deputy Crowe

Schools have principals with access to e-mail. This is not rocket science and it would not take a huge amount for a principal to inform the Department that a school does not have a science laboratory. The example was given of computers lying in corridors. It is important to get that information from schools.

Mr. Hanevy

The science task force assessed the requirements for the stock of 700 secondary schools and came up with the figure of €175 million based on sampling and different school sizes and types. The principals were invited to send us the required information despite the absence of the funding to deliver on it. The Department had to prioritise this year on areas such as access for all, structural improvements, health and safety and the filling out of contractual commitments. There was no room to make progress on that recommendation. Professor O'Hare would not otherwise have signed the report with the other members, who represented the interests of the wider community and the area of science and technology, and would not have come up with the figure of €175 million. He was also talking to our inspectorate about what was needed to service the curriculum.

Deputy Stanton

We are talking about amounts of money and inflation was also raised. That is fine but the issue concerns how many schools can actually be looked after for a certain amount of funding. The representatives of the Department seem to be saying that funding and the management of it is the issue. The committee has agreed to write to the Minister and the Department of Finance and we may recommend that multi-annual funding be examined seriously. However, there seems to be a problem. Education is crucial and if we do not have the physical infrastructure, as Deputy Crowe has said with regard to science laboratories, we will suffer economically as well as in State terms. It is something we will probably have to return to.

Chairman

We have had a longer session than anticipated but it has been wide-ranging and the issues have been examined in considerable detail. I thank our guests from the building unit of the Department for their input, which has been very enlightening and worthwhile from our perspective. I also thank members. The committee will meet next week, probably to deal with the Residential Institutions Redress Bill.

The joint committee adjourned at 3.40 p.m. until Thursday, 5 February 2003.