Minister may go private in school crisis
Monday July 07 2008
EDUCATION Minister Batt O'Keeffe is considering solving the school-building crisis by using controversial public private partnerships (PPPs).
He met with Dr Michael Somers, the head of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), to discuss the finance method late last month.
The Department of Education is already using the method to build some large schools but has been urged by some Fianna Fail TDs to "bundle" several smaller primary schools together to make them attractive enough for large building companies.
The PPPs also have the advantage of helping the Government to stay within its EU borrowing limits -- by spreading payments out over 30 years or more. The Department of Education confirmed that Mr O'Keeffe was actively exploring the idea following his meeting with the NTMA.
"The Department has a programme of Public Private Partnerships for the construction of new schools and is currently examining the suitability of additional projects for inclusion in the PPP programme," a spokesman said.
Problems
Fianna Fail Limerick West TD Niall Collins said that using PPPs would solve two problems.
"You're providing schools and you're stimulating the construction sector because there's obviously spare capacity in it," he said.
Under the PPP method, private developers agree to build and maintain schools on behalf of the State for periods of up to 30 years in return for fixed annual payments. Although the State was criticised for paying too much for the first five schools built using the PPP-method, it maintains they are now being built quicker and more cheaply than the traditional contract method.
The National Development Finance Agency chief executive Adrian Kearns recently told the Dail's Public Accounts Committee that he had no objection in principle to the bundling concept. "If there was a sufficiently big bundle of national or other schools to make it worthwhile for the market to compete -- there is much documentation with PPP projects -- there is no reason those schools should not be involved," he said.
Mr Collins added that there were many schools, including several in his own Limerick West constituency, that had sites ready to go but were waiting for finance.
- Michael Brennan Political Correspondent
