Govt pays €35m to rent school prefabs
The Government paid out more than €35m for the rent of temporary prefabs for schools last year.
Reports this morning say that €35.5m was paid last year. This represents a nine-fold increase on the figures paid in 2000, and is almost half what was spent between 2000 and 2006. During these years, the Government paid €80m in rent.
Since 2003 the Department of Education has rented prefabs, rather than buy them.
Fine Gael’s spokesperson on education Brian Hayes called it “a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money” and called for an inquiry into why the department of education has failed to plan for permanent school buildings.
After the Budget last December, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said that, due to the worsening economic climate, the building of permanent structures to reduce the pupil/teacher ratio would not take place this year.
The General Secretary of the Irish National Teachers’ Organization John Carr said the number of prefabs outside primary schools were “blots on the landscape and showed the Government’s failure to respond effectively to school’s needs”.
