Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 102: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the progress which has been made on the schools building programme in view of the fact that he committed to allocating €30 million to the project in budget 2004. [14245/04]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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This year's school building programme is the largest in the history of the State. Included in the overall funding of €388 million was an additional amount of €30 million, details of which were announced earlier this year. A total of 32 schools — 17 primary and 15 post-primary — will benefit from this additional €30 million investment. In fact, the total funding allocation in 2004 will enable more than 200 significant projects to be authorised to progress to tender and construction along with a significantly expanded small schools initiative, asbestos remediation programme and new summer works scheme. This brings to almost €2 billion the amount that has been invested since 1998 in the school building programme at both primary and post-primary levels. This is a very significant amount of investment. This level of investment will need to be maintained if the goal of eliminating sub-standard accommodation is to be achieved.

The Government remains committed to continuing the work it has started and to consolidating the substantial progress that has already been made to ensure that the needs of schools throughout the country are met over time.