Delays blamed for unspent funds

MINISTER for Education Mary Coughlan has blamed delays in building projects and reduced costs for unspent funds in her department.

Ms Coughlan said €102 million remained unspent but she insisted “it is my intention to have expenditure in my capital programme completed this year”. Some of it however “may arise in the area of pensions, where a number of late applications for retirement may be received”.

In the wake of revelations that capital funds remained unspent John O’Mahony (FG, Mayo) highlighted claims that €330 million was still to be spent and asked where that money had gone. During education questions in the Dáil he said, “this is the second year in a row there has been a huge underspend coming to the end of the year”, and €80 million was brought forward from last year’s budget.

He asked if the “€50 million spent on buying prefabs for the past three years and the €50 million spent on renting prefabs for the past two years will be wiped out”. The Minister said she was transferring costs for renting prefabs to the building of school extensions instead.

Ms Coughlan said €50 million remained unspent in the school building budget. “Contract prices are now sometimes up to 40 per cent lower than when they were at their peak.” There were also some delays because of legal and planning issues and bad weather at the start of the year. The Minister told Mr O’Mahony that building started on 53 new schools this year, compared to 34 last year.