Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 366: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the stage his Department is at in implementing the remainder of the recommendations of the Health and Safety Authority's Committee on Occupational Health and Safety in Schools (1995); the number of schools here that are fully compliant with the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20805/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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In general, individual school authorities are responsible, in the first instance, under Safety, Health and Welfare at Work legislation for ensuring the safety and welfare of children and others in their care. It is the responsibility of individual school management authorities to have a safety statement in place in their schools. The Statement should identify potential hazards, assess the risks to health and safety and put appropriate provision in place to safeguard the safety and health of employees and pupils. The Safety Statement should be reviewed on a regular basis. In practical terms, individual school authorities are best placed to assess the detail of their own health and safety requirements. My Department is working with the Health and Safety Authority and the State Claims Agency to develop a health and safety management system to support post-primary schools in meeting their obligations under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. This work forms part of a wider initiative to reduce the administrative burden on post-primary schools by supporting them in preparing policies to meet a range of legislative and regulatory requirements.

Eight such policies have been published to date. They are available on the Department's website, www.education.gov.ie. The Department takes great care to ensure that all health and safety requirements are incorporated into new school buildings and extensions. The Department ensures that its technical guidance documentation takes cognisance of all health and safety legislation to inform Design Teams of their obligations in this area when designing building projects. Provision is built into the School Building and Modernisation Programme to enable schools to address urgent health and safety problems. Over €27 million was paid out to primary schools throughout the country in 2007 under the Minor Works Grant to enable thousands of small scale works to be completed without the need to interact with my Department. Individual primary schools received a grant in the sum of €5,500 plus €18.50 per pupil.

The Summer Works Scheme, which was introduced in 2004, provides capital grants for small scale refurbishment works at primary and post-primary schools. Responsibility for the delivery of the projects is entirely devolved out to the schools and their design teams. The scope of works covered under this scheme is intended to address Health and Safety issues in all schools as well as improvement works to the existing fabric of the buildings. Since 2004, over 3,000 projects costing in excess of €300 million have been completed. With so many smaller projects having been completed over the past few years, my Department is focusing on delivering as many large projects as possible in 2008. Accordingly, there is no Summer Works Scheme for 2008. However, it is intended to have a Summer Works Scheme in 2009.