Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

I am replying to this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, Minister for Education and Science. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter as it gives me an opportunity to outline to the House the Department's position regarding the allocation of funding for Croghan national school, County Roscommon.

This school was approved for funding under the 2006 small schools scheme. A grant of €820,000, including VAT and fees, was sanctioned to enable the school to provide a new three-teacher school building. Due to the condition of the old school the board of management decided to provide a complete new building on a new site. The Department moved towards a model of devolving funding, responsibility and authority as appropriate for smaller building projects-refurbishments directly to school management authorities in 2003 with the introduction on a pilot basis of the devolved small schools and permanent accommodation schemes. Due to the positive feedback from schools the schemes were extended to include additional schools in subsequent years.

The small schools scheme allows boards of management to address their accommodation and building priorities with a guaranteed amount of funding and gives boards of management control of the building project. The intention of the scheme is to provide funding to schools to enable them to undertake wanted building projects. The scheme is not intended to leave schools with significant fund-raising needs but for the school to tailor the scope of capital works commissioned to the available funding.

A central tenet of the scheme is that the schools, granted discretion and funding, must equally accept responsibility for prioritisation, adherence to statutory regulations, control of costs and ensuring value for money. The decision on whether to continue participating in the scheme or to drop out, if the scope of build is more than the funding envelope permits, is a matter for each school authority. The authorities of the Croghan school accepted the grant offer and returned a form of undertaking in March 2007 agreeing to comply with the requirements of the scheme.

A letter and project cost details were received in May 2008 indicating that the total cost of the school's building proposals, for a three classroom school building with a large general purpose room, resource room, staff room and principal's office, would amount to €1.4672 million, an excess of €647,214 over the €820,000 grant on offer to the school. The school submitted an appeal in October 2007 for increased funding of €333,347 from the Department and indicated that it would sell the old school building and site and come up with alternative sources of funding to cover the balance of the cost. Following detailed consideration of the appeal the Department approved an additional grant of €330,000 bringing the total approved grant to €1.15 million. A total of 70% of the grant issued to the school in February 2008 following confirmation that the builder had commenced work on the project. During the course of the construction an additional classroom was added to the new school building to cater for increasing enrolments. Additional funding of €120,000 was approved by the Department in respect of the extra classroom. The final cost of the project is in the region of €1.65 million. The Department had approved funding of €1.273 million.

The school appealed for additional funding to cover the shortfall as the downturn in the economy resulted in no demand for the old school building. However, in line with the original intention of the small schools scheme, it was considered that the school should be encouraged to complete the project within the funding envelope provided and, accordingly, the application for additional grant aid was not granted. It was considered that in the current economic climate and with considerable demands on the capital budget of the Department, it is not possible to entertain such significant increases in the amounts grant aided to the school, especially as it had already two increases in grant aid. It is the responsibility of the school authorities to manage the resources allocated to them to ensure maximum value for money and to control costs. A further appeal has been received from the board of management for additional funding and the Department will process it and a decision will be conveyed to the board in due course.

I thank the Deputy again for giving me the opportunity of outlining the current position to the House.

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