€50m European loan gets school building projects going

Eight new school building projects are to begin work immediately thanks to a €50m loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The schools in Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Limerick, Waterford, Westmeath, and Wexford are being built under a public-private partnership (PPP) deal and have had planning permission since May.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn says the private firm BAM PPP, selected after a tender process 14 months ago, should be able to start construction straight away as a result of the finance.

The €50m loan from the EIB will be complemented by financing through Bank of Ireland and the National Pension Reserve Fund.

The building costs of the schools are estimated at about €100m; they will have capacity for more than 5,700 children and all but one are second-level schools. The only primary school in this PPP bundle will share a campus with a second-level school also included in the project in Doughiska, Co Galway.

Mr Quinn said: “I am particularly pleased that the EIB has again decided to support the department’s schools capital investment programme with a loan of €50m which will assist in funding this investment. It is a further signal of the bank’s renewed confidence in the Irish State and our recovery programme.”

More than 1,000 construction jobs are expected to be created in the project, which is the third group of schools to be built by PPP arrangement. They are part of the five-year schools capital programme announced by the minister earlier this year, worth €1.5bn.

The schools include three 1,000-student buildings in Athlone, Co Westmeath, Gorey, Co Wexford, and Tramore, Co Waterford. Among the projects are new schools being set up by amalgamation of existing schools and new buildings for expanding schools.

The Department of Education says all the schools are expected to be completed by 2014 and the completion will bring the total number of schools delivered under the PPP model to 23.

The project is also the first in the public sector to be funded under the PPP model in over two years.

In July, it was announced that the EIB was putting up a €100m loan to support the creation of 550 classrooms in the building and upgrading of 35 primary and 12 second-level schools.