Catholic schools are to receive the bulk of a £33 million funding package unveiled yesterday by the North's Department of Education.
Five of the seven schools to benefit from the building programme are Catholic and will receive a total of £28.2 million. Two state-controlled schools are to get £3.8 million and £600,000 is being allocated to two youth clubs.
The Education Minister, Mr Tony Worthington, rejected allegations that the money was allocated unfairly and said it was given out on the basis of need.
"We don't look at the schools and say, `are they Catholic, or are they a controlled school?'. We say what is the priority and allocate in a totally fair way, and that is what we have done."
Mr William Hay of the DUP said there was a "serious imbalance" in the allocation and claimed controlled schools had lost out in capital funding programmes in recent years.
"I would question the Minister's judgment. There is a serious imbalance here, with less than £4 million going to controlled schools."
A new school costing £13 million will be built to replace St Joseph's Secondary School, Derry, and Aquinas Grammar School, on Belfast's Ravenhill Road, is also to get new premises.
Some of the money will also be spent rebuilding a special school in north Belfast which was destroyed in an arson attack during the unrest following the Drumcree crisis in 1996.
Mr Worthington said the £33 million represented a 40 per cent increase over last year's capital programme and said it was designed to replace "seriously substandard" schools. He acknowledged that many other schools also had a case for improved accommodation.
The SDLP's education spokesman, Mr Tommy Gallagher, welcomed the allocations but said there was still a backlog of schools in need of urgent capital investment.
The funding was also welcomed by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO), whose Northern secretary, Mr Frank Bunting, said it was a small but significant step in the right direction. He said it was a disgrace that scarce public money had often to be spent repairing and rebuilding schools destroyed by arson.