Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The document referred to will be available for all to see, as it was before. It is being done in stages. The only information currently available relates to the 122 projects at the top of the list, ready to go to tender, to go on site and proceed towards construction. The next list will be of the small and rural schools projects and the permanent accommodation projects which I hope to organise soon, with the other projects which I have set out. We will also announce and place on the website the stage reached by every school in the country and what stage each is moving to. Rather than doing this with one big-bang approach we will be able to keep a better eye on the flow of work. All the information will be available, open and transparent, on the website, as it was before, with links for further information.

I intend to increase the number of schools under the devolved scheme. It worked very well, particularly in rural areas where we were able to get good value for money with local builders, people who perhaps might have had an interest in the local school or were parents of children at the school. They were able to do the work well locally. Given the success of that and that half the schools in the country have four or fewer teachers, that is an appropriate way to proceed, to give schools devolved funding. I have also doubled the amount under the summer works scheme because over the summer months many schools will be able to sort out, under that funding, any real problems they have.

Last year's underspend happened for various reasons, including planning permission and so on. An appeal in one case meant that there was an underspend of €2 million on a single school. There were difficulties in getting tenders, site purchasing, delays from design teams and so on, but the good news is that there was no money lost to the system and we were allowed to carry forward the €50 million. Nothing was lost in the end.

See this speech in context