Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We also need to look at it the other way round. That €25 million being spent on 950 prefabs would probably build one secondary school and one primary school. Switching that sort of a budget to building would not replace 950 prefabs. We are trying to strike a balance. We want to minimise the number, but in the short term a big population bulge requires flexible responses. In an ideal world we would keep these down to just transitional arrangements. My predecessors and I inherited a situation where 2,000 temporary prefabs were in use. It is now down to half of that and we have a programme to reduce it to much lower levels over time. However, a balance needs to be struck in allocating the capital budget.

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