Jim D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was nearly going to sing "The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends" from "Oklahoma" when I heard Mr. Robert O'Leary talk about the closeness of the submissions of the INTO and the IPPN. It is great to see them working on the same track. A computer cannot replace a teacher in a classroom. The teacher is the main resource in the classroom and the computer is a tool. The computer is an excellent tool for showing problem solving in mathematics in primary school and for research purposes and project work.

I believe that e-books have a limited but significant role. There is nothing like having a book in one's hand. I was doing work on Yeats with my youngest daughter and I brought her a book of his poetry. All his poems were included and my daughter could not believe that they would all be contained in a book and thought that I had downloaded them from the Internet. She took the book of poetry away with her. A hard copy of the book or a well thumbed manuscript is a significant and useful tool in education. A number of significant grants have been provided by the Department down the years, which have resulted in there being many more computers in the classroom.

I am interested in the issue of the technical and operational support for ICT. Younger teachers are more computer literate and can deal with problems more easily than I would have been able to deal with them. What provision has the Department put in place for ongoing technical and operational support?