Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The way the Department would approach this is to examine each case on its merits. Obviously, if an old school had a future use we would pursue that. If an old building had very limited value at that stage, we had a lien on the building and the land was in the patron's ownership, we would have very little by way of an asset to pursue. As regards the issue of whether we can deploy them for community purposes, which would be outside the terms of the lien, that would have to be re-examined on its merits. The land, however, would still be in private ownership.

These are arrangements which predate all of us. The model then was that the land was owned by the patron, the building was built by the State and they put a lien on the use of the building. It is therefore a question of when the change arises. The Department has to evaluate what value it can recover and how best to deploy that for educational purposes. The approach taken is that each case would be decided on its merits.