Energy bills may be used to identify schools needing refurbishment

Niall Murray Education Correspondent

Higher energy bills may be used by the Department of Education to identify schools in need of refurbishment.

The top official in the department’s building and planning division told TDs and senators that a full inventory of schools’ capital recommended 30 years ago has never been carried out but such an exercise would be hugely expensive.

During a three-hour hearing about the school building programme, Hubert Loftus said the €8.4bn being provided for education capital works in the next decade would be a significant increase on the €4.9bn invested over the past decade.

As well as allowing new schools to keep pace with rising population, the department is to allocate some of the funds on a major refurbishment scheme at existing schools.

Green Party TD Catherine Martin had asked about the inventory, which she said was urgently recommended in 1988, an exercise which was also suggested at yesterday’s hearing by representatives of second-level schools.

Mr Loftus said the department does not have detailed information in relation to every school at national level.

Given there will be a focus on refurbishment and energy retrofits in schools as part of the national development plan, he said the associated energy monitoring could identify schools with high energy use which can be “a proxy” for condition issues.

“We see that as a very efficient cost-effective way of meeting needs instead of spending a lot of money on a comprehensive inventory,” he said.

Mr Loftus said the department is satisfied with how its school building programme has kept pace with population growth in many areas of the country.

Committee members said local councillors need to do more about identifying and zoning parts of their areas for use as schools.

Many members criticised a perceived lack of interaction between the Department of Education and councils when city or county development plans are being drawn up to decide which areas are zoned for educational use in future.

“Councillors need to start asserting themselves that they have the power to zone land when development plans come up, and in certain circumstances to dezone land,” said Fianna Fáil education spokesman Thomas Byrne.

His party colleague, Kildare-based committee chair Fiona O’Loughlin, said there was a ridiculous situation in the two county development plans she helped introduce during her previous role as a councillor.

She said council officials had insisted that an area should be zoned for education use, even though the council had been told quite clearly that the landowner was never going to sell to the Department of Education for a school building.

While the growth in primary school enrolments is expected to peak in the next few years, and around 2025 at second level, one schools body described the intense growth in areas of greater Dublin as a doughnut around the city.

Catholic Primary School Management Association general secretary Seamus Mulconry said the rise in demand for places in those areas is higher than the national average — and is likely to last longer.

He said there are also schools in central Dublin with falling pupil numbers, which means falling income from the Department of Education to maintain what are usually much older buildings.

“It’s a real problem and these are the communities already suffering major disadvantage,” said Mr Mulconry.

Teacher unions have stressed the need for capital investment, other than extensions and new builds, to ensure that schools can reduce class sizes but also to accommodate the fast pace of curricular reforms, teaching of new subjects, and provision of quality learning in science and technology subjects that are the focus of Government ambitions.