A 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.