Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 May 1985

Vol. 108 No. 2

Adjournment Matter - Newport (Tipperary) Vocational School.

Mr. Smith

I should like to thank you for giving me the time to raise this matter on the adjournment and to thank also the Minister of State who has come in at fairly short notice to answer my queries.

I do not intend to delay the House very long except to say that my motion asks the Minister for Education to sanction immediately the extension to Newport Vocational School. As this House will know I rarely introduce motions on the Adjournment in this House and particularly not on what one might call a matter of a parochial nature. Newport, however, is a rapidly growing community nestling on the slopes of Slieve Felim and near Limerick city. The population has been growing consistently there and apart from having a special political interest in that development Newport was an area which I chose to travel in my young days also. It is the area from which my wife, Mary, comes.

The main building in this school is old. It was built to accommodate only 100 students. In the past 20 years about eight prefabricated buildings have been added to it to try to accommodate the growing number of students, which has now reached 226. Many of these prefabricated buildings have outlived their usefulness, and it was never intended that they would have to actually serve for as long as they have served. The school authorities in the North Tipperary Vocational Education Committee have expanded the curricula to cover a vast range of subjects, and it is acknowledged that the school is exceptionally good.

I cannot emphasise enough to the Minister the degree of frustration that has begun to develop among the school authorities — the teachers, students, the parents' council and the vocational education committee — with regard to the long delay in bringing this project to the commencement stage. It appears that at each stage, despite previous experience in submissions on other schools, despite the availability of top class consultants in quantity surveying and design and everything else which was unmatched and unchecked in previous submissions for other schools in the area, that on this occasion query after query emerged and there is a genuine feeling that these are exercises that are being introduced to slow up this project.

Because of the prefabricated nature of so many of the buildings in the school many of them will have to be moved for the new building to commence. In order not to interrupt the school session, it is fairly crucial that that work will be done during the summer holidays, to open up the possibility of starting in October, not with a total new extension, but with reasonable facilities at that time. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that sanction be given in order that that preparatory work could be concluded during the summer holidays.

I ask the Minister to make a special effort to ensure that this work can commence during the summer holidays. In order for that to happen the project must be given the go-ahead. I am not saying that all the funds will have to be available this year but it should be allowed to start and that would end the frustration that is growing in the area arising from the prolonged nature of negotiations with the Department on this whole project.

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Mr. Creed)

I am aware of the problems of prefabricated buildings in post-primary schools and I am very well aware of the problem in Newport, because I have had numerous representations over some time in relation to the replacement of this extension.

My Department have approved the development of this vocational school to provide 300 student places overall. The planning of an extension to the existing school to bring about this development has reached a very advanced stage. The present position is that the bill of quantities, which is the stage prior to the seeking of tenders, has been submitted to my Department and is at present under examination. It has been found necessary to return the bill of quantities to the County Tipperary (North Riding) Vocational Education Committee for revision in order to ensure that all the tender documentation will be correct when tenders for the project are being sought. If this documentation were to be incorrect, alterations could be required at the postcontract stage which could add to costly extras on the contract. Furthermore, the revisions have sought to ensure the elimination of trade names in respect of various materials, the inclusion of which might be taken as being an endorsement by my Department of particular manufacturers.

My Department are fully aware of the existing accommodation facilities, and their condition, at the school. The question of the provision of permanent accommodation at the Newport School has been under consideration for some time in the context of the organisation of second level educational needs in the Newport area as a whole. When it was finally decided, early in 1980, to approve in principle the development of the vocational school to cater for 275 student places overall, the decision had to be reviewed in relation to the extent of the Department's other commitments. At all times, in estimating the provision to be made each year for capital school building, a variety of factors must be taken into consideration, such as the number of projects already under construction and the number of projects in planning, particularly those nearing the stage when contracts may be placed. It was found in the case of Newport that it was not possible to initiate immediately the architectural planning of the proposed extension.

Though we may be aware of the accommodation needs of individual schools, capital restraints as well as personnel restraints, do inhibit the initiation of planning. However, the case was kept under review and Newport was finally taken into the building programme in April 1981 with the holding of the usual meetings between the Department and the school authorities and their design team.

The existing traditional school building in Newport Vocational School, measuring 530 square metres, is regarded as being in very good condition and can be adapted to meet some of the new requirements in the proposed development.

The proposed extension, which will replace existing temporary prefabricated structures dating from 1964 and later, will measure 1,424 square metres and will provide six general classrooms, a general purpose-physical education area, a science laboratory and other special rooms for the teaching of building construction, arts and crafts, metalwork and domestic science. There will also be ancillary accommodation.

In order to achieve effective monitoring and control in the planning of school building projects and so contain our building programme within our available resources, and also meet school building needs at the most economic level possible, it is the experience of the Department that it can take a minimum of 18 months to guide a school authority through the comprehensive system of cost planning and control from project inception to the completion of planning.

Well-defined procedures have been developed in response to the demands of the provision of suitable buildings in accordance with carefully worked out space requirements and cost-planning, with the purpose of having school buildings provided as speedily as proper planning allows. Standards of school design, cost control and effective administration have been set, adherence to which will ensure that the programme of educational building required will be put through to provide buildings which will serve their purpose well, and will achieve this economically.

Non adherence to the Department's requirements or difficulties arising in the course of planning can lead to a longer planning period.

However, as I have already said, planning has advanced to the stage where the bill of quantities is under examination in my Department. Every effort will be made to complete the examination as soon as possible with a view to leaving the way clear for the seeking of tenders. This latter does not follow automatically. We must examine our commitments. At the moment, we have 50 vocational and secondary school cases under construction, the cost of which eats into our capital allocation for 1985 and 1986. In the first four months of this year we released 32 cases for the seeking of tenders. The placing of contracts for these cases further erodes our resources. When we consider that there are a further 160 cases, where architectural planning is in progress, some of which are approaching the bill of quantities stage, it will be appreciated that we must exercise care to ensure, that our expenditure in 1985 and 1986, and indeed in 1987, is kept within the allocation of money available to us for these years.

In conclusion, may I repeat that the Department are fully aware of the accommodation conditions at the school referred to by the Senator. When the examination of the bill of quantities has been completed and the documentation found to be in order, every effort will be made, within our existing constraints, to expedite the placing of a contract and the commencement of work to the extension to Newport Vocational School.

The Seanad adjourned at 4.20 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 8 May 1985.