New schools cost less than prefabs, claims opposition [Irish Examiner]
- Published: 11 February 2009
Source: Irish Examiner
THE Government could fund dozens of new schools for less than the annual cost of renting prefab classrooms which cost taxpayers €85 million last year, opposition parties have claimed.
The figure was paid out by the Department of Education last year on prefabricated accommodation, including almost €53m spent on renting temporary rooms.
Labour's education spokesperson Ruairi Quinn said the scandal of the situation is not just that thousands of children go through their primary education without being taught in a permanent building, but that the system makes no financial sense.
"According to detailed research I have read, the annual cost of servicing a mortgage on a permanent building would be less than the annual cost of rent and maintenance for the prefab equivalent," he said.
"In addition, money spent on a mortgage leads to the eventual ownership of the building, whereas forking out hundreds of millions in rent is dead money, benefiting nobody but companies that manufacture and rent out the prefabs."
The Department of Education began mostly renting rather than buying prefabs a few years ago because of the costs associated with transporting them when no longer needed in a school.
However, it spent more than €32m to buy prefabs and other temporary accommodation last year, as it struggles to provide space for the rapidly rising primary population.
Figures provided by Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe to a Fine Gael TD have shown that it is spending an average of almost €8,200 on each prefab it rents for schools in Mayo.
John O'Mahony said the total 2008 bill of more than €500,000 for 69 prefabs at 35 schools was a farce.
"Instead of spending scarce resources on temporary school accommodation known to everyone as 'prefabs' , investment in permanent classrooms would have saved taxpayers' cash in the long run," the Mayo TD said.
The minister described Mr Quinn's statement as an attempt to scaremonger parents about the quality of temporary classrooms.
"The vast majority of temporary school accommodation is high-quality, heated and well-insulated, not damp and wet as Labour's education spokesman would have us believe. The provision of temporary accommodation is demand-driven in response to sharply rising pupil numbers and the thousands of extra teachers who've come on stream over the past seven years," Mr O'Keeffe said.
