Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 16 May 2024
Public Accounts Committee
2022 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Office of Minister for Education
9:30 am
Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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That is great. It is welcome.
I will turn to prefabricated buildings, an issue that was raised by colleagues earlier. I will give an example from my constituency, of Gaelscoil Phádraig in Ballybrack, which has been waiting for almost 30 years. It is not all the Department's fault. It is also reliant on another school being built for Ballyowen Meadows Special School so there is a chain of issues. However, the eye-watering figure for the leasing and purchase of prefabricated buildings by the Department was mentioned. Some of them are past their sell-by date and being replaced. Where the Department has a site on which it could develop a permanent building, why has that not happened? As I said, for Gaelscoil Phádraig there is light at the end of the tunnel but it is taking a while to come through. In a broader sense, on a national scale what is being done to phase out the leasing and purchase of prefabricated buildings? I heard what Ms McNally said earlier, that there is a place for prefabricated buildings in a modern context for school facilities. However, at Gaelscoil Phádraig it was meant to be a temporary school on a temporary site and 30 years later it is still waiting. Perhaps Mr. Loftus will respond to that.