Principals should receive a fee for supervising building and improvements at their schools, a union official said after €46 million in funding for such projects was announced today.
The Minister for Education Ms Hanafin announced that work on 192 schools would see €28 million allocated under the Small and Rural Schools Initiative.
Ninety-eight primary schools will benefit under this scheme, while more than €14 million is being provided to 74 schools for small-scale permanent classroom accommodation.
The projects will begin immediately, with school authorities controlling the planning and construction phases.
Ms Hanafin said: "The devolving of funding to local level will allow schools to have ownership of their projects and assist in moving projects in a specific timeframe to tender and construction. This devolution has the potential to deliver better value for money."
Mr John Carr, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO), said the funding was needed after years of "shocking" underfunding but added that devolving responsibility for the works placed "an unfair burden" on principal teachers.
"In most schools principals are expected to oversee the project and meet with other professionals like engineers, architects and quantity surveyors. They are in fact acting as project managers.
"It is essential that their contribution to these building and repair projects be recognised. Every other professional is paid a fee. The principal should also receive a fee," Mr Carr said.
Principals teach full time and administer school business in the evening. Now they could be required to give up some of their holidays, he added.
"For too long it has been assumed that just because a job is being done in the school that the principal will be there ... Value for money must not and will not be delivered on the backs of school principals," Mr Carr maintained.
He also called for details of the summer works scheme and other projects not covered by today's announcement to be announced without delay.
The "prefab" classroom will continue to be a feature of the Irish education system following today's announcement. Twenty schools will receive prefabricated units brought from schools where they are no longer required.
Up to 120 schools will also be given approval to rent temporary premises.
Today's announcement follows the initial bundle of 122 major projects already announced by Minister Hanafin in January as part of a €3.4 billion five-year investment programme.