During the period of the last National Development Plan 2000-2006, record levels of investment and the streamlining of delivery systems allowed a major acceleration of the school building programme with over €2.6 billion invested in upgrading existing school infrastructure and providing new school accommodation at both first and second-level. This delivered over 7,800 building projects involving tens of thousands of extra permanent school places. This investment has helped to increase capacity and transform the standard of accommodation in many schools throughout the country.
The budget for 2007 is the first year of the roll out of the new NDP 2007-2013 which will involve an investment of over €4.5 billion in school buildings. This funding will enable the Department to continue to take a proactive approach to the provision of modern school accommodation particularly in developing areas. This year alone over €540 million will be spent on school building infrastructure with over 1,500 projects which will ultimately deliver over 700 classrooms to provide permanent accommodation for over 17,500 pupils, mainly in developing areas. The Department will target funding, as appropriate, in order to ensure that additional school accommodation is provided in developing areas within the earliest possible timeframes.
Innovations in the delivery of school buildings such as Generic Repeat Designs and the use of the Design and Build model have been introduced to ensure that new school buildings are delivered in the fastest time-frame possible. Much greater authority has also been devolved to local school management boards to manage and deliver smaller building projects, thereby freeing the Department to concentrate on the larger scale projects.
The focus within the Department is also to empower schools to resolve their accommodation needs, wherever possible, by way of permanent accommodation as evidenced by the introduction of two new initiatives, the Permanent Accommodation Initiative and the Small School Initiative. The purpose of these initiatives was to allow primary schools to undertake a permanent solution to their classroom accommodation needs and, where possible, to obviate the need for temporary accommodation. Forward planning has been improved through greater cooperation with Local Authorities and the publication of 10-year Area Development Plans.
With regard to expenditure on the rental of temporary accommodation, including prefabs, every effort is made to keep this expenditure low. It should be noted that less than 5% of the almost € 495 million that was invested in school buildings last year, went on the rental of temporary accommodation. Where accommodation is needed at very short notice, however, a temporary solution can be the only option. Such accommodation may also be used where the need is short-term, such as when a school requires a temporary building while it is awaiting the completion of construction of permanent facilities.