Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 June 2004
75 Ms Enright asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of schools which have made applications to his Department for refurbishment works or new accommodation which are not listed on his Department’s school building programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19651/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis year's school building programme of €388 million will deliver in excess of 260 significant school building projects at primary and post-primary level. In excess of 200 of these will commence on site in the current year. The remaining projects had commenced in previous years and are currently nearing completion.
Apart from the projects included in this year's school building programme, my Department has on hand approximately 950 applications for significant capital investment in the primary and post-primary schools concerned. This figure comprises applications that were assessed over the past two to three years and where an accommodation deficit has been established. It also includes cases that have yet to be assessed by my Department.
The Deputy will be aware that I have been concentrating my capital funding on moving to tender and construction those projects already admitted to architectural planning rather than incur new design costs on others. The significant increase in funding secured this year has enabled significant progress to be made and the challenge is to maintain that progress in the coming years and to progress more projects through architectural planning and on to tender and construction.
I previously announced my intention to publish later this year, for the first time ever, a multiannual programme of works. To that end, the planning and building unit of my Department is currently assessing all remaining projects against the published prioritisation criteria to ensure that the multiannual programme response, when published, is well structured from the outset.
My aim since taking office has been to give as much information as possible to schools about their status within the building programme. The multiannual programme, when published, will make a further key contribution to that end. Following case by case assessment, it will indicate the status under the prioritisation criteria of all projects. In that way, and having regard to the multiannual funding envelope, my plan is to give indicative timescales for commencement of initial planning, detailed design work or movement to tender and construction as appropriate for particular projects or project bundles.
I thank the Minister for his answer. When the Minister announced the new building programme he changed from his predecessor's stance. He stated it would be open and transparent. If I, Deputy O'Sullivan or any of my colleagues ask a parliamentary question about a school, the general answer given is to look up the website to see the position. From his answer, it appears there are 950 schools which we will not find on the website because they are not on the school building programme.
The Minister will be aware that I do not normally use examples from my constituency. I visited Emo national school recently. It first applied for an extension for new accommodation 19 years ago and it does not appear on the school building programme. The school has been granted a new teacher and yet has no place to put that teacher. I cannot understand how such a school is not included. Obviously if there are 950 of them, we could come up with plenty of examples like that.
I welcome what the Minister stated about the multiannual programme of works. It is something I have long called for and supported. How will that impact on the 950 schools? Will the Minister confirm that he will be in a position to at least inform all schools, not just the 260 schools on which he stated that significant progress will be made this year, under the multiannual programme when they are likely to be reached?
The Deputy will appreciate that with approximately 3,200 primary schools and 700 post-primary schools, it would not be possible for me to keep track of all the schools in the building programme or to answer specific questions on the school to which she referred, but I seem to recall that this was the one the health board closed down because of the sighting of rats in the vicinity of the school.
That could have been some time ago but not recently.
In the past every school that wrote a letter to the Department seeking inclusion in the building programme was regarded as being on that programme. As a result, the building section of the Department was inundated with telephone calls about projects which were not likely to progress because they did not merit priority in the programme. An ever greater number of schools got on to the building programme and then it became a question of who could shout the loudest or who could assert the most political pressure to get their school completed.
I have tried to put an end to that. The project applications which had got to some stage of architectural planning form the building programme. We are making substantial progress in moving projects through architectural planning to tender and construction. That will leave space for other schools to advance. The other schools will advance on the basis of clearly set out and objective criteria. That is the only way to operate the system.
The issue of schools which have particular needs because they get an extra teacher etc. is dealt with, not under the major capital projects in the building programme to which we are referring but separately under temporary accommodation, emergency accommodation or out of the contingency funds, depending on the circumstances involved. When we talk about the school building programme we are referring to the building programme for major projects, both primary and post-primary.
My question relates to existing applications. Will the Minister confirm that if a school has made an application, he envisages the Department being in a position to give an indicative timescale or an indication of where the school stands on the list of priorities if it is not yet on the building programme? The biggest frustration is that people have no idea when their school will be reached.
The biggest frustration for schools was being in the building programme for a good number of years and not getting anywhere. Like other Deputies, I could cite schools in my constituency which were 20 or 25 years allegedly on the building programme but really were not.
On the schools which have not yet entered the building programme, it is our intention, based on the objective criteria I mentioned, to be in a position to get those schools on to the building programme as others move off it. Not all the 950 have been assessed and therefore at this stage I do not know whether they will be on the building programme.
