John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 69: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the procedures in place to ensure that facilities provided at public private partnership schools are available to the community free of charge or at an affordable price; if such stipulations have been put into all schools built to date; if such stipulations will be inserted in contracts for the proposed second level school at Adamstown; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40227/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Under the terms of the Project Agreement for the School Bundle Pilot PPP project each school retains an 'availability bank' of hours which it may utilise outside the normal school core opening hours (8.00 am to 5:30 pm). The cost of providing the school buildings and services for these hours is included in the contract structure therefore additional costs do not accrue to the school. The availability hours are used by the schools for tutorials, parent teacher meetings and similar school activities, however the hours may also be allocated by the schools for community use. There is no restriction on this other than the time must be within the availability bank hours and the correct notification periods set out in the project agreement are adhered too. The allocation of the availability bank hours is entirely at the discretion of the school.

It is open to any individual or group to obtain use of the school facilities directly from the Operating Company. This would fall outside of the availability bank hours and would there for be subject to economic costs. In addition the school authorities have the right to veto any proposed use which would be contrary to the ethos of the school.

It is intended that similar provisions will be included in future projects under my Departments current PPP Programme.