Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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75. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children being taught in prefabricated classrooms at both primary and secondary levels, by county; the timeframe for the abolition of prefabricated classrooms in the programme for Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11035/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Management of class groups by schools within available accommodation determines the number of pupils currently in temporary accommodation and may vary from year to year.

As the Deputy will appreciate, the overall policy goal of my Department is to ensure the highest standard of permanent accommodation for all schools. In the context of a rapidly increasing school population, my Department's priority is to ensure that every child will have access to a physical school place and in this regard, it is sometimes necessary to make use of temporary accommodation in order to meet the accommodation needs of schools.

Under my Department's Capital Programme (2011-2015) in excess of €2.1 billion was spent on the provision of new schools and the refurbishment of existing schools which resulted in the completion of 238 major school projects and 1,131 additional accommodation projects. As a result, 2,894 additional classrooms were provided in primary schools to accommodate 80,000 additional pupils as well as 403 replacement classrooms which provided new accommodation for 11,000 pupils. At post-primary level 23,000 additional places and 10,000 replacement places were also provided.

My Department's 6 Year Construction Programme (2016-2021) was announced in November 2015 as part of a €2.8 billion schools capital investment plan. Under this programme funding will be provided for over 310 large scale school building projects and will deliver some 19,000 additional permanent primary school places and 43,000 additional post-primary school places. The new Programme also provides for devolved funding for additional classrooms for schools outside of the programme where an immediate enrolment need has been identified, such as the appointment of an additional teacher. In addition it is my intention to replace all purchased prefabs with permanent accommodation over the lifetime of the programme.