25th November 2019
The Department of Education and Skills has today announced the annual Summer Works Scheme for 405 schools, comprised of 324 primary and 81 post-primary schools. The budget for the scheme has been cut from €47 million in 2017 to €30 million, a €17 million cut in this vital funding for schools.
The Summer Works Scheme is designed to allow schools to carry out small and medium scale building works that will improve and upgrade existing school buildings. The current scheme was announced in March 2019 and is being applied on a multi-annual basis.
School funding from government lags behind the level of investment needed to keep schools open and operational. Reducing critical schemes such as this will do further damage to the condition of our school buildings. Little wonder some 362 schools across the country have submitted large scale works which are required on their buildings, to the Department of Education and Skills.
INTO General Secretary John Boyle said:
Cutting funding for this important scheme by €17 million, while expecting more schools to deliver infrastructure projects with less money is nonsensical. Investment in the school building programme needs to be scaled up, not reduced. When elastic band solutions such as these are worn away, our school buildings will further degrade, potentially compromising the health and safety of pupils and staff alike. Irish children are entitled to state-of-the-art school buildings fit for the twenty first century.
Further information is available from the Department of Education and Skills by clicking here.