O’Keeffe to review €30m spend on school prefabs

EDUCATION Minister Batt O’Keeffe has instigated an independent examination of the €30 million spent annually on renting prefabs as part of a review of the school building programme.

He told the Dáil he has sought independent advice from outside the Department of Education to review the hiring and purchase of prefabs within the schools capital budget, which will reach €586m this year.

Almost 6% of the department’s €2.7 billion school buildings spend between 2000 and 2006 was on prefabs, with most of the costs used to hire rather than buy them. About 750 schools had rented prefabs last year at a cost of about €30m, compared with €4m on prefab purchases.