Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

——the level of micro-management at central level was limiting the amount of progress that could be made. This meant that an enormous number of schools were badly in need of modernisation.

This year, not only are we spending five times what was provided for school buildings in 1997, the innovations that have been made in the design and delivery processes for schools building projects are also helping to achieve an ever greater amount of progress. Before outlining the positive impact that innovations such as the development of standard designs and the devolution of more work to local level have made, I would like to speak about investment in education.

This Government is determined to ensure that every child is educated in a suitable and comfortable environment. Its commitment to this goal can be judged by the investment of more than €2 billion on school buildings during the period 2000 to 2005, with a further €500 million being invested in 2006. In the previous budget, the Minister for Finance provided €3.9 billion in capital funding for the education sector as a whole over the next five years. While the challenge before us in reversing decades of under-investment in school buildings and in responding to emerging needs in new population areas is great, we are making enormous progress.

To date in 2006 I have announced the first tranches of a programme which will see building projects carried out at more than 1,100 schools. I have also announced my plans to provide 23 new post-primary schools and four new primary schools under a major expansion of the Government's public private partnership programme from 2006 to 2009. The new schools building programme, as announced, means we can ensure that we have a rolling system of building, planning, architectural planning, design teams and of going to tender to ensure that everything does not happen at the beginning of the year. In this way, expenditure by the Department is rolled out through the year, thus ensuring we get best value for money.

The Government's achievements in the period 2000 to 2005 speak for themselves. At primary level, €1 billion was spent allowing the completion of 63 new schools of up to 16 classrooms in size, 246 large-scale refurbishment and extensions at existing schools, 63 small primary schools modernised under the small schools scheme, 55 schools provided with permanent extensions in lieu of prefabs under the permanent accommodation scheme and 4,351 smaller-scale refurbishment projects largely delivered under the summer works scheme. At post-primary level, with spending of €1 billion, we have provided 19 new schools, 129 large-scale refurbishment and extensions at existing schools and 1,361 smaller-scale refurbishment projects were completed.

Not only have all these projects been delivered in a relatively short space of time, many more are in train as we speak. My Department is delivering more than 160 large-scale primary schools building projects which are either already at construction or authorised to proceed to tender and construction. A further 225 primary schools are being modernised through the small schools scheme. At post-primary level, my Department is delivering more than 60 large-scale school building projects which are either already at construction or authorised to proceed to tender and construction.

Many schools have also been refurbished through the annual summer works scheme and almost 800 will have summer works projects done this year. This innovative scheme, which allows schools to get small projects done over the summer holidays, did not exist when this Government came into office and schools were waiting for many years for improvements such as rewiring, new roofs or windows. Now when the school gates close for the summer, the builders move in and the students come back to an improved environment just a few months later.

The level of work being done under the schools building programme is at an all-time high. While increased investment has been a central reason for this, changes in how projects are managed have also made a major difference. This Government has put a particular emphasis on devolving the delivery of many school building projects to a local school management level and since the start of 2004, where possible, all small-scale projects are now delivered in this manner.

My Department has also reduced the red tape for schools for large-scale projects by keeping its interaction with schools to the initial stages in setting the parameters for the projects and then devolving the delivery of the projects through the planning permission process, tendering and construction to school management authorities. In setting the parameters for large-scale projects in the initial stages of design, my Department has recently started evaluating these designs at meetings with schools and their design teams, rather than the traditional method of correspondence. Already this approach is receiving very positive feedback and is speeding up the design phase of the projects.

In addition and in accordance with best practice standards, my Department has developed a standard school design for eight and 16 classroom schools that can be repeated in locations throughout the country. This will result in speedier delivery of projects, savings in design fees and land use savings arising from the use of the two-storey design. Two of these projects have been completed, construction is under way on another and a further 19 are scheduled for delivery as part of the current schools building programme. Among these are two new 16-classroom schools in Dublin 15 which are scheduled to be built for September 2007. These projects were advertised last week and will be using the GRD design with quick build methodologies to achieve the projected completion date.

Another innovation has been the introduction of design and build contracts. Traditionally, separate procurement processes were used first to design and then to build new school buildings. These two processes can be combined into one under a design and build contract. This was the approach used by my Department to provide a new 16-classroom school on a greenfield site in Griffeen Valley in Lucan within a 13-month timescale. The school was delivered on time and within budget through a combination of traditional and modern system-build technologies executed on a fast-track, five-month building programme. A similar approach was used last year to deliver a new 24-classroom school in Diswellstown which was completed earlier this year. My Department is moving forward with this approach for the provision of new primary schools in Adamstown and a new post-primary school in Phibblestown.

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