Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 112: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if he has completed the inventory of the 3,200 primary school buildings; when he will publish a report providing full details of the inventory; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37090/09]

Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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In order to improve the information systems available to my Department in relation to primary and post-primary schools, my Department's Forward Planning Section uses Geographical Information System technology which contains a certain level of information on all schools in the country, at both primary and post primary level.

To further expand and improve the capabilities of the system, arrangements are being made to conduct a survey of accommodation at primary and post-primary level that will be linked to other information held in the GIS including information on demographic trends across the country.

Work on the development of an online facility for the compilation of the inventory of school accommodation referred to by the Deputy is well advanced. The detailed functional specification for the Inventory has been completed and work is currently underway on building the online interface and database to hold the information.

The online facility will enable schools to provide information about their accommodation, including its composition in terms of permanent and temporary structures, electronically to the Department. The Department will also be collecting information on the age of existing school accommodation including both purchased and rented prefabs. The inventory will also include information on size of school sites.

Schools will be able to access the online facility through the Department's Esinet portal. Initially it is planned that a small number of schools will be given access to the facility for testing. This is scheduled to take place in November. It is expected that the facility will be made available to all schools to start uploading information before the end of 2009.

When all the information has been received from schools, the Inventory will provide key data and statistics on the existing school building stock throughout the country at both primary and post-primary levels. It will enable the Department to more accurately calculate capacity in existing school accommodation and therefore identify where additional accommodation is required.

When the information has been compiled and analysed, it is intended to publish it and this is likely to happen before the end of the current school year