O'Keeffe accused as school scheme delayed

MINISTER FOR Education Batt O’Keeffe has blamed new contracting procedures for a delay in proceeding with promised new school-building projects.

Less than 10 per cent of the school-building projects promised by the Minister almost a year ago have been completed, according to information supplied to Fine Gael in a written parliamentary answer.

Of the 78 school projects the Minister approved last year for tender and construction, seven have been completed. According to the Department of Education, 21 are under construction, 30 are at the tendering stage and the remaining 20 are “pre-tender”.

Mr O’Keeffe told Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes in mid-December he expected a further five projects to have started by year end and 25 more to commence in the first quarter of 2010. Projects that have not yet reached the tendering stage would start “as soon as possible” this year.

Mr Hayes yesterday accused the Minister of making “an appalling lack of progress” at a time when construction prices were at an all-time low. “The Minister has had a serious opportunity to speed up the sluggish school-building programme while ensuring value for money but instead, the programme has proceeded at a snail’s pace in 2009.” He said the Minister had garnered a huge amount of attention when he announced the projects but the figures showed two-thirds of these had not begun construction.

A spokesman for the Minister said some projects had been slower than anticipated to get off the ground because they were using a new form of public contract introduced by the Department of Finance in 2008.

Spending on capital projects in education was going up from €550 million last year to €614 million this year and 30,000 places will have been created in new schools or new school extensions by the time current projects are completed, he said.

Mr Hayes said he accepted that the new arrangements would have had an impact, but it was intolerable that almost two years later a lack of familiarity with paperwork was the reason for the delays.

“Not only are many of the schools across the country falling apart, demographics show that our school-going population is increasing at a rapid rate. If we are to cope with these building demands on our schools, we need a more efficient and responsive building programme. “Mr O’Keeffe has had an opportunity like no other Minister for Education to deliver more ‘bang for his buck’ on the school-building programme and he has squandered it.”