Call for overhaul of school works process

SCHOOLS in Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s home county which have been waiting from eight to 12 years for building works to begin are proof of a need to overhaul the bureaucratic process, a teachers’ union has claimed.

The list of nine primary schools in Offaly whose applications for major building works has been issued by the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) to demonstrate the drawn-out assessment process it says is faced by staff and boards of management of schools on the Department of Education school building programme.

More than 1,100 of the country’s 4,000 primary and second-level schools have applications with the department for a range of works.