The announcement today by Minister for Education and Skills Ruairí Quinn that €2.2 billion in capital funding for schools is to be made available over the next five years has been welcomed by the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA). IVEA General Secretary Michael Moriarty says:

"The announcement of the provision of over 100,000 permanent school places, which includes over 80,000 additional school places, is very welcome. It is good to see forward planning being undertaken to cater for the increased demand which will be created in the coming years by our recent soaring birth rates. Government projections show that there will be a need for over 20 new schools at primary level and another 20 at second level between now and 2017. The projections also indicate that over 180 existing primary and second-level schools in developing areas will need major extensions or new buildings between now and 2017 to cater for increased demand for pupil places, while a further large number of extensions will be required outside of these areas.

The Minister has also indicated that, given the number of projects to be delivered, his Department is putting in place enhanced and diverse delivery methods. In a major development, he recently announced that individual Vocational Education Committees (VECs) are to manage 27 school building projects around the country. VECs [soon to be reformed into Education and Training Boards (ETBs)] have extensive local knowledge and long experience of managing key building projects, and are well placed to provide school building project management support to other education and training service providers in their catchment areas, on request. "

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