Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It would be unthinkable for the grant not to be paid next year. I hope that the Minister's press release turns out to be wrong and that he revises his ambition regarding the minor works grant for next year. Schools will not function without it and repairs will go undone. This week, principals were preparing to go to banks to seek overdrafts to fund projects it had been intended to fund out of the grant. The Minister said it has not been paid every year. However, it was not paid in only one year, which was in the depths of the recession and caused considerable controversy, difficulty and hardship. That cannot be allowed to happen as the economy begins to turn. The grant must be paid and put on a statutory footing, as Fianna Fáíl is seeking, such that schools can have certainty on how they will be funded. The back end of the year would be a financial black hole for schools if they did not have the grant. They have come to depend on the Government for this funding and rightly so because they are publicly funded schools.

They should not have to reach into their own pockets or opt for further fundraising on top of the burdens they place on parents already.

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