Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a question on subhead A12, teacher education. Is that in-service education or does it include the training colleges? If it does, what impact are the private colleges having? Is there a budgetary bonus? I understand private colleges such as Hibernia College are training one-third or two-thirds of our teachers. Is that having a budgetary impact and is there a knock-on bonus as a result?

With regard to the capitation grants to schools, has the Department carried out any work on examining the value for money of water harvesting systems for schools? I conducted a brief analysis in my constituency. I contacted many of the schools and looked at their water bills for a year. They and the Department are paying huge amounts of money to the local authorities for water. Has the Department considered a cost-benefit analysis of providing a grant to schools for water harvesting systems? Many of them have a flat roof and there is no shortage of rain, so it appears obvious that the option should be explored.