Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I reply on behalf of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Hanafin. I am pleased to have the opportunity to outline the position of the Department in regard to the building project at Cavan No. 1 national school, County Cavan.

The school is accommodated in a listed building of Georgian design. It has an enrolment of 61 pupils and a staffing of a principal teacher, one assistant teacher, one shared learning support-resource teacher and one language support teacher. I join in Deputy Crawford's tribute to principals of schools. The work they do is extraordinary. In a smaller school of this type the principal must perform teaching duties and the entire burden of administration falls on her shoulders. All that is done diligently and without complaint by the principals who serve the Department so well in that regard. In the larger schools the principal does not have to engage in intensive teaching duties. In those cases there is a large staff and pupil enrolment to manage.

The school was offered a devolved grant of €345,000 under the small schools scheme in 2005 to extend and refurbish the school. The board of management accepted the grant offered and proceeded with the architectural planning of the project. Generally, the Department of Education and Science is moving towards a model of devolving funding, responsibility and authority as appropriate for building projects directly to school management authorities. I agree with Deputy Crawford that, in general, the system has worked well. Devolving of funding to school management authorities allows them to have control of their projects, assists in moving projects more quickly to tender and construction and can also deliver better value for money. The assistance of the principals, the chairs and members of boards of management are invaluable with their local knowledge and their willingness to give of their time to forward these projects.

The small schools scheme was originally introduced on a pilot basis for 20 schools in the 2003 schools building programme. Owing to the positive response from schools the scheme was extended in the schools building programmes of 2004, 2005 and 2006. While appropriate for many schools, the Department is aware that the scheme is not necessarily suitable for all national schools seeking to refurbish their school building or to build new accommodation. It is not the intention of the scheme to leave schools with massive fundraising requirements. Rather, the level of funding should determine the scope of works undertaken. However, in some cases the school site or building can be problematic and this appears to be the case in the school in question. In other cases, the extent of the required work is too great for the funding available under the scheme. In such circumstances, schools have a number of choices. They can reduce the scope of intended works, fundraise to cover the shortfall or withdraw from the scheme and be considered for inclusion in the mainstream school building programme in line with the project's priority band rating.

As I stated, the board of management of Cavan No. 1 national school accepted the grant offered and proceeded with the architectural planning of the project. The extent of the building which the board of management can construct is determined by the sensitive location and nature of the site. The school subsequently applied for and received planning permission for the construction of two new classrooms, ancillary accommodation and external works subject to a number of conditions, including the requirement that all works be supervised by a suitably qualified archaeologist. Construction work commenced in December 2005 and is ongoing.

The board of management has submitted an application for additional funding which was considered by the appeals board which requested that further inquiries be made regarding the application. When the inquires are completed the application will be re-examined by the appeals board. The Department will continue to work with the school management to ensure an appropriate solution is found for the school and departmental officials will be in contact with the school shortly. I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to outline the current position to the House.

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