Renting of school buildings under fire

PARENTS want the State spending watchdog to examine the annual €8.4m cost of renting school buildings which they believe would be better spent on new facilities.

The lobby group Tuismitheoirí le Chéile (TLC) was set up after the School Buildings Programme was announced by Education Minister Noel Dempsey in January.

Figures from the Department of Education show that rented buildings and prefabs account for €8.4m of its annual spend. This amount was spent last year in almost half the country’s 3,200 primary schools, hundreds of which are dilapidated or in serious disrepair because of poor investment. A further €17m was spent on temporary accommodation for 230 primary schools, of which half was used to install prefabs rather than new buildings.