Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Fleming is right that this is a crude instrument, but I would put forward an observation for consideration on this matter. I was at a talk by, I think, the ex-president of Tanzania who spoke about how to ensure that schools paid teachers and they turned up for work. One of the big problems was that the money was coming from the state for the school to do its job but the principal and the teachers did not show up and schoolbooks were not bought. The money was not being used as it was meant to be used. There is an analogy between that situation and this one. As the Minister of State said, the State pays but the purpose of Senator Quinn's Bill is to address the problem that the money is going where it is meant to go. That ex-president said that the single most effective thing they ever did was to pass a law or a rule whereby the payments as they were made were nailed to the front door of the school and all the parents could see them. The notice was to the effect that this month the school is being paid this amount of money, this is the number of teachers who should be in the school, this is the amount that has been paid for books, and so forth. He said it was the single most effective thing they were ever able to do for rural and urban education because it empowered the parents to demand that the state money was used as it was meant to be used. I am struck that there is quite a clear analogy between that and what Deputy Fleming is trying to do here.