Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 67: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will report progress on commitments made to Educate Together; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13521/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As I indicated in my statement on the publication of the Estimates for 2006, extra funding is being made available to the primary school management bodies. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that the funding being provided to Educate Together is being increased to €120,000. This represents an almost threefold increase over the level of the grant allocation for this body under the 2005 Estimates provision.

In making its case for funding to me, Educate Together also raised the issue for support for newly establishing schools. To support such schools I am introducing a new grant of €10,000 payable in two instalments of €5,000 for the boards of management of newly establishing schools in respect of training of the boards of management and staff in their initial years. Schools established in the 2004-05 school year and which are now in their second year of operation will receive €5,000 as a training grant for boards of management. Those established in the current school year will qualify for both instalments of the grant. The new grant is in addition to the existing start-up grant of €6,348.69 which has been available to all new primary schools which began operating from 1 September 2000.

As a further measure to assist new schools I will be authorising the earlier appointment of principal teachers in these schools to assist in the establishment phase. Discussions on the arrangements to apply for the implementation of this initiative are ongoing between my Department and the relevant interests.

As the Deputy is aware, I asked officials, in relation to Educate Together's ethical education programme, to establish a working group to explore with Educate Together and the colleges of education the best means of ensuring that training in this area can be provided to students studying to become primary school teachers.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that my officials have contacted the Conference of Heads of Irish Colleges of Education, CHoICE, to progress the matter and a meeting has been arranged with them to, among other things, formally establish this working group. This meeting will take place over the coming weeks. The colleges are well aware of the issues surrounding Educate Together's ethical education programme and they have indicated their willingness to assist the work of the group. In addition, my officials are due to meet with the chief executive officer of Educate Together over the coming weeks to progress the matter.

My Department has supported the establishment of a significant number of new multi-denominational schools in recent years. Of the 24 new schools granted provisional recognition in the past three years alone, 12 are multi-denominational.

To underpin the establishment of new schools, my Department has made a number of changes in recent years which have assisted patron bodies in the provision of accommodation. One of these changes, which was strongly welcomed by the patron body for multi-denominational schools, was the abolition of the local contribution to the building costs for state-owned school buildings, which had cost up to €63,000 per school. Other innovations include the development of the design and build model to provide permanent accommodation much faster — such as in the case of the new multi-denominational school in Griffeen Valley, Lucan which was designed and built in less than 13 months.

Standard-generic designs have also been developed by the building unit of my Department for eight and 16-classroom schools. It is expected that use of these designs, wherever possible, will yield a substantial savings in terms of design team fees as well as reducing the time taken to bring new school projects to completion.

Many multi-denominational primary schools are established in areas of rapidly expanding population growth. School building projects in these areas are assigned a band 1 rating under the published prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects. This is the highest band rating possible which results in the delivery of permanent accommodation in the shortest timeframe achievable. Pending the delivery of new school buildings, my Department contributes 95% towards the cost of rental of temporary accommodation for schools with permanent recognition. The local contribution for a school in such circumstances is capped at €3,175 per annum.

I am satisfied that the range of measures now being introduced, including the almost threefold increase in their grant, provides a comprehensive response to the request made for additional support for Educate Together and its schools.