The Education Minister has announced that €450 million will be spent on school building next year.

The spend is part of the €2.2 billion investment plan announced in 2012 - which was aimed at boosting the number of school places by 100-thousand over five years.

Overall, 27,800 permanent places will be created next year with 3,500 thousand construction jobs coming on stream for building work on the facilities.

In total, 196 major school building projects will be onsite during 2015 – these include projects that were scheduled for 2014, and are either already onsite, or about to begin onsite.

Minister Jan O’Sullivan says the focus next year will be on improving and expanding older schools:

The Department has also announced that it will add a further 16 projects to the five year plan at this stage.  These are all projects which have proceeded through the planning process, and are at a stage where they are ready to proceed to tender, and to construction during 2015.

The projects are: