John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 159: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the funding in place for schools in County Mayo for them to upgrade their outdoor play areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8367/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The scope of works to which the Deputy refers would ordinarily be appropriate for consideration under the Summer Works Scheme. As the Deputy may be aware, the Summer Works Scheme was introduced in 2004. Since then, over 3,000 projects costing in excess of €300 million have been completed.

Considerable extra investment has been provided in the Budget to increase funding for school buildings to almost €600 million this year. With so many small projects having been completed over the past few years, I intend to focus on delivering as many large projects as possible in 2008. There will not, therefore, be a new Summer Works Scheme as part of my Department's building programme this year.

Primary school authorities may, however, use their annual minor works grant to address the type of works to which the Deputy refers. In November 2006 I increased funding for the minor works grant by 44% on the previous year. Around €27m was paid out to primary schools throughout the country late last year to enable thousands of small scale works to be completed without the need to interact with my Department.