Cork North West TD, Michael Creed, has welcomed the announcement that funding will be made available to Ballinora National School, for the construction of three new classrooms to replace existing pre-fabricated accommodation currently being used by the school. Commenting on the announcement Deputy Creed said:
“I am delighted Ballinora have received the go ahead to construct three new classrooms to replace existing pre-fabs in the school. I would like to pay tribute to the efforts of the principal his staff, the board of management and the parents association who have worked hard in putting together an application for funding under the pre-fab replacement scheme”.
“The Department’s School Building Unit will be writing to the 46 schools covered under the 2013 programme in the coming days offering grant aid for replacement of rented prefabs. This initiative will replace 37 resource rooms and 119 mainstream classrooms with permanent accommodation which will cater for over 3,300 pupils”.
“A total of €15 million has been allocated for this initiative in 2013/2014. It is anticipated that further rental savings of €2m per annum will be achieved as a result of this most recent prefab replacement scheme. This is in addition to the estimated €5m per year savings which will be achieved as a result of the 2012 prefab replacement scheme”.
\”The annual rental bill for prefabs was almost €30m each year when this Government took office. Between the 2012 and 2013 prefab replacement schemes, this amount will be reduced by almost 25%. The Programme for Government contains a commitment to reduce the reliance on rented prefabs in schools and this second initiative builds on the success of the previous scheme. The new initiative will result in the creation of an estimated 300 direct and 60 indirect jobs in the coming years”.