Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 256: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn to the fact that a primary school (details supplied) in Dublin 6 has been given a grant allocation of €540,000 in respect of works authorised by her Department which have been costed by professional advisers at €766,906 and that the board of management and parents are not in a position to contribute one-third of the capital cost of the project having regard to the construction and related costs; if she will request her Department's officials to review the grant allocation in order that 90% of the capital cost would be provided from the substantial capital budget which has been allocated to her Department; and ifshe will make a statement on the matter. [13277/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The school referred to by the Deputy applied and was approved for funding under the devolved Permanent Accommodation Scheme for 2007. The Permanent Accommodation Scheme (PAS) was originally introduced in 2003 on a pilot basis and due to the positive feedback from schools was extended to cover more schools in subsequent years.

The Scheme is not structured on the basis that the Department funding must be supplemented by local fundraising. It does however allow a school to supplement the funding from local resources if they so wish. Clearly where a school has a known level of resources apart from the Department funding or knows its capacity to raise additional resources it is open to that school to extend the scope of works to include additional facilities. A school does not have to accept the invitation to participate in a devolved scheme and instead be considered for inclusion in the mainstream school building programme in line with the project's priority band rating.

I increased funding for the PAS in 2006 by an average of 20%. This increase follows-on from an increase of up to 25% in 2005. The feedback has in general been very positive, the number of schools participating has increased year on year and many schools are anxious to be included. In order to maintain this momentum I approved over 140 additional schools to participate in this scheme in 2007.

The school has very recently forwarded correspondence to the School Building Section of my Department regarding increased funding for the project. The matter will be reviewed and a decision will be conveyed to school management as soon as possible.