Building sector supports schools lease-back plan

THE building industry has welcomed Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe’s proposals to generate employment by getting developers to build schools that would be leased back by his department.

Mr O’Keeffe has asked builders to construct schools in areas where they are needed, which the Department of Education would then lease and eventually buy back, in a scheme that could speed up delivery of schools projects as well as attacking the slowdown in the construction industry.

The proposed scheme, revealed in the Irish Examiner yesterday, could help bolster a sector that has seen employment fall from 280,000 to 250,000.