Prefabs Sprout: short-termism for short people

[wysiwyg]

Over €50m was spent on renting school prefabs last year - O'Keeffe

How much capital borrowing could be serviced with annual payments of €50 million?

How many schools could we build for that capital sum?

When would we have paid back the loan?

Can anyone do the sums?

No takers?

Where are Joan Bruton or Richard Burton when they're needed?

I did a very rough estimation HE3, so if anyone wishes to correct me, go right ahead.

Based on a 200,000 mortgage costing circa 12k per annum to service, 50 million euro would service 4,166 such mortgages.

If you then multiply 200k * 4166, you get a total of circa 833 million. Given an average cost of 3 million per school, you could build and pay back for circa 280 brand new schools.

Let's say the DoE can get a better deal than your average mortgage holder on credit, I'd round the cost of servicing prefabs to be worth about 300 brand new schools.

[absconded]

Folks,
This is a disgraceful waste of money which could have been used for better purposes.
This is just one example of waste in one dept. Only the tip of the iceberg.
With so much misuse of public money and mismanagement, why were ordinary PS workers the first to be scapegoated in the drive to curb spending.

[He3]

I did a very rough estimation HE3, so if anyone wishes to correct me, go right ahead.

Based on a 200,000 mortgage costing circa 12k per annum to service, 50 million euro would service 4,166 such mortgages.

If you then multiply 200k * 4166, you get a total of circa 833 million. Given an average cost of 3 million per school, you could build and pay back for circa 280 brand new schools.

Let's say the DoE can get a better deal than your average mortgage holder on credit, I'd round the cost of servicing prefabs to be worth about 300 brand new schools.

Thanks for that wysiwyg. That would be a lot of schools. Enough to house say 100,000 children. How many children are in the school system nationwide?

[greengoose]

Not forgetting the insalubrious conditions of many of these prefabs I hope! Shoddy conditions in which to to educate our kids.

[He3]

This thread has stirred only a tiny fraction of the interest of the Cullen Chopper thread. I suppose school building programmes are a MEGO topic aren't they?

[myksav]

On the subject of the suitability of pre-fab structures for schooling.

What, besides the cost, is the problem with pre-fabs? Poor conditions? I did part of my schooling in a pre-fab back in the 70's and, yes, they were horrible conditions, mainly because the cheapest pre-fabs were used. No insulation, floors that were basically chipboard and rotted with wet.
That was a bad choice of product.
I have also lived comfortably in a pre-fab house, it was actually warmer than most houses I'd been in at the time. And warmer than many houses now. The initial cost difference between the two was about 30%, the lifespan difference was over double. That particular house is still lived in by someone else.

[He3]

Try teaching or attempting to learn in a portakabin full of 15 year olds on a damp day and you will begin to understand what is wrong with the accommodation.

Pre-fabrication as a construction technique has as you say many advantages in certain cases, but the type of pre-fab or portakabin temporary structures used as subtitutes for properly constructed classrooms and other essential school facilities like labs is something else entirely.

The Minister for Education should have an office no grander than something equivalent to what our school users enjoy. If 40000 children in the system are in portakabins, then the Minister should be in a portakabin too. So should her senior civil servants overseeing the building programme.

Fair is fair.

[cyberianpan]

Over €50m was spent on renting school prefabs last year - O'Keeffe

How much capital borrowing could be serviced with annual payments of €50 million?

How many schools could we build for that capital sum?

When would we have paid back the loan?

Can anyone do the sums?

No takers?

Where are Joan Bruton or Richard Burton when they're needed?

We don't know the figures here ... but a stench of waste pervades government spending

That's why FG & Labour should hire 6-7 professionals who'd crunch some real figures:

2-3 Fiscal folk (accountants though would consider other highly numerate business managers)
1 Economist
1 Ex Dept of Finance mandarin
2 senior business managers/consultants

Plenty of these are redundant right now but also professional services firms could supply them at cost

Use them to crunch the figures on instance level problems like this

They should also hire another team of 6 to do macro budgetary forecasting

Then they'd be a very credible opposition

cYp

[myksav]

Try teaching or attempting to learn in a portakabin full of 15 year olds on a damp day and you will begin to understand what is wrong with the accommodation.

Pre-fabrication as a construction technique has as you say many advantages in certain cases, but the type of pre-fab or portakabin temporary structures used as subtitutes for properly constructed classrooms and other essential school facilities like labs is something else entirely.

The Minister for Education should have an office no grander than something equivalent to what our school users enjoy. If 40000 children in the system are in portakabins, then the Minister should be in a portakabin too. So should her senior civil servants overseeing the building programme.

Fair is fair.

If you read my post, you'd have seen that I have experienced the 'joys' of being 'educated' in a pre-fab. One that was falling apart after three years of use. The reasons I found (at a later date) were cheapness (the real meaning of cheap) and politics, primarily local politics.
The 'cheapness' was endemic in the 70's, still no excuse.
The politics, likewise, mainly through planning permissions. It was easier to get permission for temporary buildings than permanent ones.
(before yez start blaming FF, the local council have been FG dominated since the 60's)

As I posted, poor product acceptance.

[He3]

We are in agreement.