Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 534: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the total amount of money spent on temporary school buildings in both primary and secondary schools in the State for each of the years 2001 to 2006 inclusive, with a breakdown on a constituency basis for each of these years, in tabular form. [38738/06]

Paul McGrath (Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Question 544: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the money spent on providing and on leasing prefab classrooms in primary schools and in second level schools in each of the years 2000 to date in 2006. [39013/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 534 and 544 together.

The information requested by the Deputies in relation to the total amount of money spent on temporary school premises in respect of both purchase and rental for the period 2000 to end Oct 2006 is outlined in the table. However, the breakdown of expenditure on a constituency basis is not available.

As the Deputies will see from the following table the spend on temporary accommodation represents a very small fraction of the overall yearly spend on school buildings.

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 provision of rented accommodation provides an immediate solution to a deficit of school accommodation, and is often the only available option where extra accommodation is needed at short notice. However, the current focus within my Department is to empower schools to resolve their accommodation needs, wherever possible by way of permanent accommodation. In order to reduce the amount of temporary accommodation at primary level a new devolved initiative was launched in 2003. The purpose of this initiative is to allow schools to undertake a permanent solution to their classroom accommodation needs and to achieve the best value for money. Since the introduction of the devolved initiative over 200 schools have been allocated funding under this scheme.