Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 478: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if the small school grant will be available to schools in the academic year 2008/2009; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14553/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The devolved Small Schools and Permanent Accommodation schemes were introduced in 2003. The purpose of the Schemes was to devolve funding to individual school authorities to undertake smaller scale building works such as refurbishment of existing buildings/provision of small extensions with guaranteed funding. Under the terms of the Schemes, school authorities were empowered to manage these works with guidance from and minimal interaction with the Department.

Since the introduction of the Schemes, over 730 projects have been approved for funding. With so many smaller projects having been completed over the past few years, I decided to focus on delivering as many large projects as possible in 2008 particularly to ensure that sufficient school places will be available in rapidly developing areas as well as delivering improvements in the quality of existing primary and post-primary school accommodation throughout the country. The provision of a Small Schools Scheme in 2009 will be considered in the context of my Department's multi-annual School Building and Modernisation Programme for 2009 and subsequent years.