INTO calls for publication of school list

TEACHERS have called for Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe to immediately publish the prioritisation of all school building projects on his website after it emerged he had two schools added at the last minute to the most recent announcement in February.

Documents released to the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act show that Barefield National School, Co Clare, and Inchicore National School in Dublin were added to the list after the minister’s policy adviser contacted the building unit in relation to the 41 schools it had proposed should go to tender and construction this year.

Despite an email showing that one building unit official made clear to Mr O’Keeffe’s adviser that their inclusion would have implications for urgent building projects in 2011 and 2012, the minister insisted the decision was not political, or in response to lobbying from Fianna Fáil representatives.

“There were concerns if the project was to go on in April, but we made it quite clear in the correspondence and in the decision that was taken that they would go on site in late 2009, into 2010, and that’s the important factor,” he told the Irish Examiner.

“There was a band 1 [top priority] rating in relation to the Dublin school. Barefield was announced in 2007 and I like to, as far as possible, honour commitments made by previous ministers,” Mr O’Keeffe said.

Both schools have been waiting many years to progress on the building programme, and were among six schools in the February announcement which Mr O’Keeffe’s predecessor Mary Hanafin had approved in November 2006 to go to tender and construction, but which had been delayed by funding shortages.

Inchicore National School is now cleared for an extension/refurbishment project to create an eight-classroom school and Barefield National School’s project involves a 16-classroom extension.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) said that while it was good news for the two schools concerned, the correspondence revealed by the FOI documents clearly shows a lack of transparency relating to the building programme, and other schools will rightly be raising questions.

“A commitment was given by the minister in November to publish all data on his website by Christmas, yet this has not happened. There are more than 1,000 schools waiting for urgent building work, yet here we find two schools are added to a list of announcements at the 11th hour,” he said. “Is it any wonder there is widespread cynicism throughout the country about how decisions are made? People have been demanding an end to the politicisation of the building programme for years,” said INTO general secretary John Car.

More than 1,200 schools have applications for building projects with the Department of Education, with an extra €65 million added in February to the €580m previously allocated by Mr O’Keeffe for school capital works this year.