O’Keeffe pledges to publish school building priorities

THE priority of schools in the Department of Education’s €580 million building programme is to be published on its website before the end of the year, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe promised yesterday.

The move is a return to a system operated by former minister Noel Dempsey but which ended during the last minister Mary Hanafin’s term in the department afterwards.

He was asked by Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes if he would revert to the transparent initiative under which schools could check at any time where they stood on the list rather than waiting for a nod and a wink from the local Fianna Fáil TD.