Northern Ireland's Education Minister Caitríona Ruane has been accused of misleading governors, teachers and parents when she said £17m would be available for new school capital builds.

Speaking in a Stormont debate on new school builds, Assemblyman Dominic Bradley said the Department of Education’s paper ‘Schools Estate – Capital Programme’ - which was presented to the Education Committee - made £192m available for capital works.

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"When the Executive’s reduction of £22 was netted from that £170 million remained," he said.

However, he said this figure is already committed throught £101m to PPP (Public Private Partnership) payments; £17.2m to existing major works already underway; £30m to minor works covering safety statutory requirement, and £22m to other existing site works and fees.

"The sum of these figures indicate that the £170m mentioned in the Department's press release is already spent," said Mr Bradley.

He said this means that there is no ‘headroom’ expenditure for fresh major capital works.

He called on the Education Minister to clarify the situation.

(PR/GK)