Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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260. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the capital budget for SOLAS; if she will provide an inventory of SOLAS assets; the further capital spending planned for SOLAS; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32562/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The capital allocation to SOLAS for 2014 was €2.5m., which relates to the training centre network formerly managed by FÁS and now transferred to the Education and Training Boards (ETBs). This funding is now allocated by SOLAS as appropriate to the relevant ETBs managing those training centres. All major assets of SOLAS (Training Centres, Equipment and Machinery) were transferred to the Education and Training Boards in line with legislation.

While there is no dedicated capital budget for further education (former VEC) programmes, a small amount of funding is allocated annually to ETBs in response to applications for funding for emergency works. In 2013 a total of €736,000 in such funding was allocated.

The recent FET strategy suggested that a dedicated capital funding provision should be a feature of allocations to the ETBs in order to support changes set out in the strategy and the development of further education and training services to learners. This will be considered in the context of the overall capital funding needs of the education and training sector.