Hayes alleges gross incompetence as school building funds not being spent

LESS THAN one quarter of the 2010 budget for new school buildings was spent in the first six months of this year, according to figures from the Department of Education.

Just over €135 million out of the annual budget of €578 million was spent up to the end of June.

Fine Gael TD Brian Hayes, who obtained the figures during parliamentary questions to Minister for Education Mary Coughlan, said the department had shown “gross incompetence” in its failure to spend money.

“If this trend of expenditure between now and December continues, the Department of Education will have to hand the unspent funds for school buildings back to the Department of Finance.”

Around one-third of all schools have current applications with the department for building programmes, Mr Hayes said.

“We know that over a €100 million has been spent on temporary accommodation over the last three years, most of it on prefabs. We know the snail-like progress that many applications go through. We know that the new tendering system introduced in 2008 has made it more difficult in bringing school projects to completion.”

Something was “badly wrong” when the department could not spend the money they were given to construct new schools and classrooms, particularly when the construction industry had the capacity to provide new buildings and construction prices had fallen by over a third, he said.

“In a few weeks time half a million young people will go back to primary schools up and down the country. Schools are crying out for new buildings and new classrooms.”

Mr Hayes said he was calling on Ms Hanafin and the department to explain why they found it so difficult to spend the money that they are given. “We are told that there is no problem in providing the funds for such buildings,” he said.