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Education Minister Ruairí Quinn announced a second round of approvals for schools in a €40.5 million initiative aimed at replacing rented prefabs with high quality classrooms.

91 schools around the country have been given the green light to proceed with the construction of permanent classrooms.

This latest funding follows on from an announcement from the Minister in March that 77 schools would be building new classrooms to replace prefabs.

Today’s announcement will result in a total of 194 mainstream classrooms and 105 resource teaching/learning support rooms being built.

Minister Quinn said:

This announcement shows the Government’s commitment to phasing out the inefficient renting of prefabs and is great news for thousands of children and their teachers. We are delivering on a key commitment given in the Programme for Government.

Despite the tough economic situation this country faces, we have secured €40.5 million for this important programme. It will see approximately 6,000 pupils move from prefabs into permanent classrooms and resource rooms.

And as well as being a huge improvement for the schools involved, the construction industry will be boosted by the creation of an estimated 700 direct and 140 indirect jobs.

The scheme will result in savings of approximately €5 million per annum on the rental of prefabs in these schools in coming years.

Along with the School Building Programme, an estimated 3,250 direct and 650 indirect jobs will be created this year through the Government’s investment in education infrastructure.