THERE is outrage this week after it emerged that seven Donegal schools which are ear-marked for extensions, refurbishments or new schools are still stuck where they were five years ago.

The schools have hardly seen their plans move since 2004, when they had been listed by the Department of Education as having entered the 'architectural planning' stage of the schools' building programme.

The schools include St Patrick's Primary School in Lurgybrack, Holy Family NS in Ballyshannon, Pobailscoil Gaoth Dobhair, SN Chonaill, Machaire Clochar, in Bunbeg, as well as Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal, St. Eunan's College and Gaelscoil Adhamhnain in Letterkenny.

On Wednesday, following the publication of the department's school building plan for 2009, it emerged that the schools had not progressed from architectural planning stage - which covers several stages from site suitability to detailed design - since they first entered the list in 2004.

St. Eunan's College and Gaelscoil Adhamhnain, which are both in the pipeline for extensions or refurbishments, are still listed as being in the 'early architectural planning' stage.

Downings native and Irish National Teacher's Organisation (INTO) General Secretary John Carr said the schools' building plan "fails to explain why dozens of schools are stuck for five years or more at certain stages in the building programme".

Projects are given a priority rating at the start of the architectural planning stage, but critics of the programme say that gives no clue as to how a school progresses.

They say a lack of transparency about the programme allows projects to leapfrog over others and the public are in the dark about what criteria are being used.

In the plan, the department stated that, in light of current demands on the department's budget, "it is not possible at this time to give an indicative time frame for the progression of individual projects which are currently in architectural planning."

Mr John Carr said the department needs to provide indicative timescales for building projects. He said that without this data, hundreds of schools around the country have no way of knowing when, if ever, their building projects will come on stream.

"Without this transparency schools cannot have confidence in the system," he said.

On a lighter note, the school building plan showed that in Donegal, there were two new schools completed recently, Clonmany NS and Scoil Eoghan in Moville, while a third, Dooish NS in Ballybofey, had an extension completed recently.

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