24 August 2007

Safe Schools

Today I signed an interministerial decree that puts into operation the first abridged version of the Extraordinary Plan for making safe the scholastic buildings. The sum of 215 million euro has been released and the relevant towns and cities can ask for loans for 800 interventions to restructure the scholastic buildings in their territory.

The loans will be made available to the local authorities by the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti once the decree has been recorded. It has also been signed by the Minister of the Economy and Finance. The finance will get to the coffers of the towns and cities by the end of the year. In this period, together with the relevant Regions, I will sign the programme agreements relating to the Extraordinary Plan.
Once the summer break has finished, I am keen to do something concrete to give the schools of our country structures that are adequate and safe to avoid tragic episodes like we have seen in the past.

Even in this case, as has already happened for the housing policies, detailed work has been carried out, and there has been the release of funds that had been blocked in the accounts of the Ministry. This will make available resources to the local authorities for interventions like safety measures, consolidating and adjusting the structures, adaptations for seismic regulations, knocking down architectural barriers, restructuring and carrying out extraordinary maintenance in hundreds of school buildings throughout the whole country.

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Society