New schools are still being built with '1990s designs'

Mon, 24 May, 2021 - 16:45

Jess Casey, Education Correspondent

New school buildings are still being fitted with gas boilers despite a retrofitting scheme aimed at making older buildings more climate-friendly, the Seanad has heard.

Many new school builds also have not been designed with a whole-school-ventilation system, and active travel infrastructure seems to be “secondary” in the design process.

The heating systems, play areas, and infrastructure of the Department of Education’s new school builds were raised in the Seanad on Monday by Green Party senator Roisin Garvey.

“New designs are like 1990 designs, and we’re retrofitting some schools while repeating old patterns with new schools,” she said.

The Department of Education has confirmed to Ms Garvey that it is still putting new gas boilers into new school builds, she told the Seanad.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

“In this day and age, I don’t think that is good enough. At the same time, the department is also retrofitting gas and oil burners in schools."

It seems insane to be wasting money on new gas boilers in new schools when we’re replacing them in other schools.

A lot of the new school buildings also do not have proper ventilation, she added.

“I have got my hands on a few new school designs, big secondary and primary schools, and they have ventilation in the toilets and maybe in the home economics room. They don’t have a whole-school ventilation system.”

Best-practice now is a "closed envelope" system with air-to-water or air-to-air and a heat recovery ventilation system, she added.

“We're telling the kids about climate change, and that we have to do everything we can, but we're not putting them in buildings in 2021 that are designed in a modern way despite 20 years of research from the department on getting it right.”

In response, Josepha Madigan, the Minister for Special Education, said that there are currently 135 new school building projects ongoing that are at or have completed the design stage.

1,000 building projects

"There are also more than 1,000 school building projects under the large scale and additional accommodation schemes," she said.

"My department is at the forefront of design with respect to sustainable energy and school buildings," she said, adding that this has been recognised both nationally and internationally.

"The department's technical guidance document sets the benchmark for sustainable design school buildings with a clear focus on energy efficiency, and they are based on solid energy research projects.

"Successful and repeatable results are then incorporated into all new school designs and refurbishments through the department's technical guidance documents."

The design guidance also includes future-proofing, she added, in order to take advantage of technologies as they become viable.

"For example, direct modulating high-efficiency gas boiler systems that can support the integration of heat pump systems."

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