Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Question 244: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the annual outlay on rental of prefabricated school buildings in County Wexford; if this is considered to be a cost-effective method of providing school accommodation by comparison with permanent school buildings; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35873/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The information sought is not readily available in the format requested by the Deputy as the financial records which are maintained in respect of payments made to school authorities for rented temporary accommodation are recorded on a monthly basis and are not recorded on a county basis. However, if the Deputy wishes to request details on the annual cost of rented school accommodation on specific schools in County Wexford, officials will provide the required information.

In the five years since 2000 the Department has spent €39.2 million on the rental of temporary school accommodation, mainly in primary schools. In addition, the Department spent €73.5 million over the same period on the purchase of prefabricated buildings in the primary and post-primary sectors. This expenditure was for the supply and installation of prefabricated buildings including associated site works, and other costs such as for compliance with planning permission conditions, professional fees, connections for water, electricity and sewage and represents less than 5% of the total expenditure on school buildings over the five year period from 2000 to the end of 2004.

The demand for additional accommodation in schools has risen significantly over the last number of years mainly due to the rapid expansion in teacher numbers, particularly in the area of special needs, the growth in the school-going population in rapidly developing areas and the demands to cater for diversity through the recognition of new Gaelscoileanna and Educate Together schools.

The current focus within the Department is to empower schools to resolve their accommodation needs wherever possible by way of permanent accommodation. To reduce the amount of temporary accommodation at primary level a new initiative was launched in 2003. The purpose of this initiative is to allow primary schools to undertake a permanent solution to their classroom accommodation needs and to achieve the best value for money. The feedback from the 20 schools in that pilot initiative was very positive and the initiative was expanded to 44 primary schools in 2004 and over 70 schools were invited to participate in this initiative in 2005. As a result of this initiative the amount spent on the purchase of prefabricated buildings in 2004 was just half of what had been spent in 2003.