Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 21: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to phase out the inefficient renting of school prefabs; the number and cost of prefab rental contracts to which the State is currently tied; and the dates on which they cease. [9848/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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2057My Department is currently developing new procedures and systems for the provision of temporary accommodation with a view to achieving best value for money. These include the development of standard specifications for temporary accommodation, the development of new contractual terms to incorporate buy-out and relocation options to cater for individual local circumstances and appropriately protect the interests of my Department and school authorities.

A change in policy implemented by my Department is to provide devolved grant aid for the purchase (rather than rental) of additional accommodation where the need for such accommodation is likely to exist for more than 3 years. Furthermore, since July 2008, it is also policy to offer schools being approved for devolved grant aid for additional accommodation the option to use their capital grant aid to build a permanent classroom(s) rather than purchase a prefab. These policies will reduce the usage of prefabricated accommodation and, particularly, the incidence of long term rental of prefabs.

In September 2009, 2,037 prefab units were been rented by Primary and Post-Primary schools and this number has been reduced to 1,707. It should be noted that a prefab unit may consist of one or more classrooms and/or ancillary accommodation and that expenditure incurred on the maintenance or upkeep of rented prefab units is generally included in the rental contract between the prefab provider and the school authorities. â'¬29.2m has been allocated in 2011 to cover the rental cost of accommodation at primary and post-primary levels including an allocation of â'¬25m to cover the rental cost of prefabs.

Prefab rental contracts generally range from six months to three years with an option to renew at the end of each contract period. The following list provides the detailed information on the contract periods for the prefab rentals currently on hands.