Monday, February 18, 2013

€90m payout row over vacant school

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRhS7LXrh7uQPmzHue-iyW_MRqZVwFh_DPznh7LhcyNOzOqNNVU_wA ROW is brewing over a €90m state payout for Christian Brothers school-building projects amid the wrangle over the handover of one of its schools to the multi-denominational Educate Together.
Christian Brothers Schools (CBS) is to benefit from projects worth €60m in the current five-year school building programme, the Irish Independent has learned.

That is on top of €30m already paid out for major building works in CBS schools that have finished recently, or are due for completion soon.

The figures have come to light as negotiations on the handover of the vacant boys' primary school in Basin Lane, James Street, Dublin hit a stumbling block.

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is committed to opening the new Educate Together school in September.

The Edmund Rice Schools Trust (ERST), which now owns and controls the CBS schools, is blaming legal issues for the delay.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin agreed to a merger of the 193-year-old Basin Lane boys' school and a local girls' school so Educate Together could move into the building.

The department is likely to expect the building to be handed over at little or no cost. 

But ERST argues it could be legally constrained from releasing the property at less than its commercial value.