No legal agreements in place for State’s multi-million investment in schools on patron-owned sites

About 85% of schools are located on patron-owned sites. The Department of Education 'historically' relied substantially on patron bodies, such as Catholic Church authorities, for the sites on which schools were built on, the report notes

There has been very little progress in securing legal agreements for the large number of schools built outside of lands owned by the State, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has found.

Due to an absence of appropriate legal agreements with patron bodies, the State’s multi-million capital investment in most new schools and extensions has not been formally secured, the C&AG highlighted in its annual report inspecting the accounts of the public sector.