Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Does the Minister agree minor works grants were used by schools, particularly older schools, to continually upgrade classrooms and infrastructure and, as a result, they were able to maintain the school estate? This decision could mean that in the long term, because schools will be unable to do continual maintenance and upgrading, further pressure will be put on the capital budget for school building replacement and so on. While the Minister will probably save money in the short term, this could potentially cost the public in the longer term. Has he carried out a review of when he proposes to reintroduce the grant or has it been abolished completely? Will it be dependent on finances from year to year? This will affect smaller rural schools, in particular. Apart from maintaining the school estate, the grants also provided valuable employment and business locally and we should not forget that. Every grant to a school is spent in the local community by local providers carrying out the work and that has a knock-on effect.

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