Millions wasted on renting and buying prefabs, claim teachers

MILLIONS of euro that could be spent on modern buildings is being wasted on renting and buying prefabs, angry teachers claimed yesterday.

Helen O’Gorman, principal of St Mary’s National School in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, and a member of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation executive committee, said e1.25m has been paid out renting prefabs at her school in recent years.

But it would cost just e3m to provide a new 16-teacher classroom and the school is preparing a mortgage plan to present to the Department of Education, showing that the cost of repaying the loan would cover the prefab rental costs for 15 years.

“Where is the creative thinking in the Department of Education and the Department of Finance? They should cut the bureaucracy, give school boards of management the funding and schools will provide value for money.”

A similar situation was highlighted by delegates from Portloaise, where teacher Niamh Campion said more than half the primary pupils are taught in prefabs.

“Scoil Bhride, the largest school in the parish has more than 660 pupils and three-quarters of them are taught in 25 prefabs, the majority of which have been bought by the department. But it still has to rent prefabs at a cost of e125,000 a year for use of these temporary buildings,” she said.

The Department of Education paid about e50m in rent for thousands of prefab classrooms last year and more than e30m purchasing prefabs last year, out of a total school building budget of e580m.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe told the INTO congress on Tuesday that a review of the rent paid for prefabs was being carried out for his department and schools are being offered grants to buy prefabs, rather than rent them, if they are needed for more than three years.

But John Boyle, a south Dublin principal, said the Government’s failure to deliver 21st century school buildings during the boom years was one of the most damning indictments of the country’s political leadership.

“It is to our nation’s eternal shame that thousands of children are still being educated in Dickensian conditions. In the parish where I work, 750 pupils are taught in prefabs, most of which are 25-years-old,” he said.

Mr Boyle, also an INTO executive member, said the e30m cut in the school building budget last week has condemned 9,000 children and 300 teachers to substandard classrooms for the foreseeable future.