A Cork school has inspired the government's decision to build permanent classrooms instead of purchasing temporary accommodation, the Education Minister has said.

According to Batt O'Keeffe, Millstreet Convent National School prompted the shift in policy.

"The school came to me last year to suggest that it use department grant-aid of €240,000 to build two new classrooms instead of buying pre-fabricated units for which the money was intended," he said.

"The parish had already donated a site to the school so there were no site acquisition costs involved.

"The school's proposal made sense to me so I decided to make the option available to other schools around the country and so far almost 60 of them have chosen to follow the example of Millstreet Convent National School as part of the pilot plan."

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Mr O'Keeffe said the move is an example of how "commonsense solutions and lateral thinking can make an enormous difference in the lives of those involved in Irish education".

"I'm delighted to learn that the two new classrooms in Millstreet Convent National School will be ready in September," he said.

Minister O'Keeffe said he was taking radical steps to reduce the need and cost of rented temporary accommodation in schools around the country.

"I've begun a review of rented temporary school accommodation and my department officials are meeting suppliers to negotiate reductions in rental costs.

"It's now the case, too, that if temporary accommodation is required for more than three years the Department will offer a school a grant to buy it rather than to rent it.

"I want to provide high-quality permanent accommodation for schools."

Over €614m will be spent on the school building programme this year, creating many thousands of school places through new schools and school extensions, as well as creating much-needed jobs in the construction sector.

"The opposition parties like to misrepresent the facts on the issue of temporary accommodation but let's remember that when Fine Gael and Labour were last in government they were spending seven times less on school buildings than we are today," said Mr O'Keeffe.

"I applaud Millstreet Convent National School on its initiative and I wish the teachers and pupils here well for the future," he added.

(PR/JM)