IPPN

Published: 07 April 2009

Source: independent.ie

By Katherine Donnelly


Tuesday April 07 2009

EDUCATION Minister Batt O'Keeffe is under fire after publishing a school building programme that only provides "partial information".

The minister has bowed to pressure by publishing a list of the status of 247 school building projects within his department.

But the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) said that the list is full of holes, with no timescale provided.

The minister has promised further details in due course, but INTO general secretary John Carr said that they had been promised full information by the end of last year.

The list produced by the minister shows at what stage the 247 projects are in the department's procedural framework, known as architectural planning, for major capital work .

But the INTO criticised the list for giving no indication of priority or timescale and said many applications from schools were not even on the list, noting that in November the minister said there were 360 major projects in "architectural planning".

Mr Carr said: "This is only partial information.

"What people want to see is the full list of all schools in the building programme, the priority rating assigned to each school and an indicative timescale for building projects.

"Without this data, schools have no way of knowing when, if ever, their building projects will come on stream. Without this transparency schools cannot have confidence in the system."

He said said that over five months ago Mr O'Keeffe told the Dail that he had instructed his officials that all of the data on schools and their priority rating should be put on the department's website.

"He said he hoped this would be done by the end of last year. It still hasn't happened and now schools all over the country wanted to know why."

Demands

Mr Carr said that from 2002 to 2004, following demands by the INTO for transparency and accountability in the building programme, Noel Dempsey produced full information on school building.

"At the time, at least all schools in the country knew where they stood and could have trust and confidence in the process," Mr Carr added.

His successor in the Department of Education, Mary Hanafin, did not continue that practice.

Last night a spokesman for Mr O'Keeffe said he had already indicated that he intended to publish on the department's website information on the details of projects on the school building and modernisation programme.

"Information will be provided on the status of the project, the band rating and type of project. Work on formatting these lists is at an advanced stage and the minister hopes to be in a position to publish very shortly."

The latest criticisms follow revelations that two schools were added, at the last minute, to the list of projects to go to tender and construction this year.

The minister's spokesman said yesterday: "Lists will always be changed. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."

- Katherine Donnelly