Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 November 2013
99. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide details of the works that will be completed to schools in Dublin 5, 13 and 17 under the school works scheme, the funding for which was recently announced for 2014. [50101/13]
View answerI welcome the restoration of the summer works scheme, the €40 million allocated to it and the €28 million allocated to the minor works scheme. If my figures are correct, I estimated at budget time that this Minister has cut the education budget by almost €1 billion over the three budgets since this Government has been in power. While this announcement is welcome, as my own trade union, the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, ASTI, has said, it is to be hoped it is a return to providing the best possible resources for our children.
The Deputy will be aware of my announcement on 7 November of an additional €70 million for school improvement works. This comprises a once-off payment of more than €28 million to primary schools as part of the minor works scheme and a further €40 million to facilitate the re-introduction of the summer works scheme for 2014. The summer works scheme funding will facilitate schools carrying out small and medium-scale building works that will improve and upgrade existing school buildings. Commensurate with the level of funding set aside for the scheme, applications will be assessed in accordance with the prioritisation criteria outlined in the circular accompanying the scheme. Details are available on my Department's website www.education.ie. As the closing date for receipt of applications is 10 December next, it is not possible to provide the information sought by the Deputy. My Department expects to be in a position to notify successful applicants towards the end of February or early March 2014.
The Minister's last comments answered some of the key points about the payment. Even small works require technical expertise and, as I understand it, consultants' fees cannot be recouped, or could not be recouped previously under the scheme. Is that still the case?
To follow up on comments made by Deputies in the Technical Group about the figures for schools published today in The Irish Times, I note that the highest transfer to third level education is from the 17 fee-paying schools on the south side of Dublin. Can we be certain there will be a fair geographical spread of this funding across the north and west sides of Dublin and the whole country to ensure everybody receives a reasonable share of this allocation?
The adjustments that had to be made in my Department, given my Department and the Departments of Social Protection, Justice and Equality, and Health are the four Departments that are the big spenders, and to make the corrections necessary-----
I do not agree they are corrections or adjustments; they are anything but.
Reductions, cutbacks - whatever the Deputy wants to call them.
They have left the education system struggling.
The Deputy should allow the Minister to respond.
What I have tried to do has been to protect front-line services as far as possible, which in response to Deputies Daly and Broughan, was-----
It is not an either-or.
Order, please.
I am sorry, but I do not like hearing these dead mantras from-----
The Deputy is taking up the Minister's time.
Fee-paying schools have had their pupil-teacher ratio significantly disimproved relative to what it was for the past 20 years. The burden of carrying the adjustment, correction or bailout - whatever the Deputy wants to call it - is, at the end of the day, putting a hand into somebody's pocket to take money out when they can least afford it, in order to regain our economic sovereignty. We have not fully recovered that yet but we are in a better place, as indicated by today's unemployment figures and other figures. Given a growing national population in the education space, we have tried to protect the delivery of front-line services and we will continue to do so.
I too welcome the fact there will be a minor works grant and a summer works scheme this year. The fact the Minister discontinued it last year left a lot of schools in a very difficult situation. The CPSMA, which is the management body for 90% of primary schools, indicated that half of our primary schools are in debt. Fund-raising events are taking place left, right and centre in every parish in the country, whereby families who are the most hard-pressed section of society, and who are trying to put their children through school, are being asked to cough up to make up the deficit. Will the Minister give a commitment that the funding will be here to stay next year and that he will not discontinue it again after this once-off funding which he has indicated he is allocating?
Given we are still in the calendar year for this budget and the next budget is going to kick in later, I am not in a position to make that commitment. I can tell the Deputy the indicators would suggest that any adjustments in the education budget, downwards or otherwise, will probably be less next year than they were this year. However, we will have to wait and see because there are a whole lot of variables that play into that.
The great thing about the parental and community engagement in Irish education, relative to other countries, can be seen in regard to even a small grant. I was in two schools in Cork on Friday where a mainstream grant had been made available rather than a minor works grant or small schools grant. In one case, this allowed for a building extension replacing five prefabs, and the parents were so happy to see this happening that the money leveraged a total sum of which 25% came from the parents and 75% came from the taxpayer. That is because of the relationship in this country between parental and community groups and the local school. This money can, on occasion, work to get children out of prefabs, which were a scandal. We should never have had young people in prefabs for the length of time they were in them. At the height of the Celtic tiger, 20% of all primary school children were in prefabs, which are now surrounded by ghost estates.
