Projects for votes claim is denied

FORMER Education Minister Dr Michael Woods has said he did nothing wrong in adding projects to the school buildings programme in the run-up to last year’s general election.

Opposition parties have accused the Government of buying votes with false promises of building projects, after provision of funding set out in letters to schools last year never transpired. Documents from the Department of Education, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show unease among officials early last year. They expressed concern over efforts by Dr Woods as then Education Minister to expand the building programme they had set out, despite having only €153 million to spend.

He claimed that the addition of schools in expectation of funds being transferred from other departments was normal practice.

His Cabinet colleagues approved an extra €19m for schools just over a month before election day, garnered from savings in his own and up to 10 other departments.

However, he acknowledged that the extra allocations were normally made nearer the middle of the year. Dr Woods also denied any of the schools were added under pressure from the party leadership.

“I never did these things electorally, it came from my own work with the secretary general of the department on priority schools which needed work done,” Dr Woods said.

“I can only accept responsibility for what I did, whatever happened to the money after I left Government is not a matter for me.”

Although this appears to be a direct reference to the performance of the current minister Noel Dempsey, a Department of Education spokesperson declined to comment.

The documents released to Fine Gael TD Paul McGrath also showed Dr Woods had asked officials in the department’s building unit to change the tone of communications with schools. He said last night he was concerned about officials telling people on the phone that no work would be done that year, when the building programme had not yet been finalised.

But Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny called for an urgent inquiry into the issue, suggesting a model along the Public Accounts Committee investigation into the DIRT inquiry. He said an independent third party should review all the relevant departmental papers in the first five months of last year and officials and ministers should then be called before the committee.

Labour Party education spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan said there was a stark scale of deceit, saying: “Not only were Fianna Fáil candidates and ministers making promises to build schools they knew could not be delivered, senior Government figures must also have been at that stage plotting the massive 70% increase in third level registration charges.”