Caitríona Ruane: Time to Resign

Dominic Bradley MLA has asked the Minister for Education for a breakdown of the backlog of maintenance work to be carried out on schools.

The response from the Minister contains a list of hundreds of schools owed large amounts of money - £217 million in total and many schools are owed several millions pounds each. This money is meant to be available to help improve nurseries, primary and secondary schools but the Minister isn’t providing the funding when it’s due.

It’s another gigantic blunder by the Minister. Here are some schools owed money:

Sydenham Primary     £1,603,325
St Anne’s PS     £1,954,862
Holy Trinity PS     £1,226,056
Belfast Girls’ Model     £3,586,395
Belmont House Special    £1,055,871

See the full list of schools here

Dominic Bradley MLA has said this means “many children are being taught in substandard classrooms. This shortfall is putting the health and safety of children at serious risk. There are serious questions to be answered like just how long have the Minister and her officials been aware of this? How long will the Minister allow this situation to continue? And what exactly are the implications for the pupils in our schools?”