Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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Question 43: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if there are plans to implement the proposals by the Educate Together patron body for service level agreements to be drawn up by her Department and patron bodies as a means of ensuring adequate funding for setting up new schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10702/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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It is in the Departments interest that schools and, in a broader context, school management authorities should be as competent as possible in carrying out their responsibilities. Management bodies at primary level can have a significant role in promoting such competence. The Department, therefore, provides grant assistance to the primary school management bodies to defray expenses incurred in the running of their organisations. Additional funding of €40,000 was made available to Educate Together in 2005 and in 2006 the annual grant to the organisation was increased to €120,000 from a base grant of just over €40,000 in 2005. I am confident the increased level of funding will enable Educate Together to provide ongoing support to their existing and newly established schools.

The Department has also recognised specific issues that arise in relation to school start-up and this has particular significance for the management of multi-denominational schools given the number of such schools that have been established in recent years or any future schools that Educate Together may open.

In this regard, it provides:

A training grant of €10,000 for the Boards of Management and staff of new primary schools established from 2005 onwards.

A training grant of €5,000 for Boards of Management and staff where the school is in the second year of operation.

The appointment in advance of the school opening of the principal teacher so the he/she can assist in the preparation for the first year of its operation.

The Department has also made a number of changes in recent years which have reduced the financial burden on new school promoters. One of these changes, which was strongly welcomed by Educate Together, was the abolition of the local contribution to the building costs for state-owned school buildings, which had cost up to €63,500 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 Educate Together school in Griffeen Valley, Lucan which was designed and built in under 13 months.