Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him and his officials for attending. The Minister is correct that this committee will try to champion all things educational. We must also hold the Minister and his officials to account, which is why he is here today.

I wish to raise a number of specific issues, although we could go on all day discussing the Estimates. On the question of demographics, is the Minister satisfied that the Department has a handle on the cost of demographic changes and the services that will be required because of those changes? I am not convinced that the Department is planning far enough ahead in terms of demographics or that, in the context of the Estimates, costs could not arise unexpectedly in certain areas because secondary schools, in particular, were not planned early enough. The Department got away lightly recently when, for example, the Franciscan College Gormanston went into the free sector a few years earlier than the Department believed was necessary. In fact, it was necessary when it happened. I have seen that happen before and I worry about it in the context of future expenditure.

How well funded is the new action plan? How dependent is the plan on funding for full implementation? What does the Minister mean by the best education services in Europe? What is his metric? Is it the service that is best funded, the one with the best PISA scores or the best pupil-teacher ratio? What does the Minister feel are the metrics upon which this should be judged?

Industrial relations is obviously a major issue and there is a massive increase in the Estimates for in-service teacher training. I understand that this relates to various curriculum changes at junior certificate level as well as to other issues. However, one major teacher's union is not taking part at all. What effort is the Department making to ensure that the money is spent efficiently on training as many teachers as possible for the new courses? While it is not directly related to the Estimates, I ask the Minister to comment on students being penalised by 10% in the junior certificate on foot of the ongoing industrial relations issue, particularly those in ASTI schools. The Department is spending all of this money on teacher training but ASTI members are not officially taking part the reform programme and their students are going to lose out. Given the amount of money being spent, I presume it would just be a case of putting more people into those training centres.

An issue arose last year and I ask the Minister to clarify the position in respect of it. The issue in question is referred to in the departmental notes and relates to tax settlements between the Department and the Revenue Commissioners and between the State Examinations Commission and the Revenue Commissioners, which are quite unprecedented. The notes do not specify what, if any, element of these settlements represent penalties and interest. The sums were substantial, with the State Examinations Commission settlement amounting to €10 million or €11 million and the Department's to just over €1 million. That is a great deal of money. Obviously, the tax was always due and had to be paid. I would not dispute that. However, I would be very disappointed if I learned that much of it was penalties and interest. I ask the Minister to clarify the position in respect of that issue.

On the question of the €100 million in so-called "smoothing" under the Stability and Growth Pact on the capital side, the Minister has said that it must come in by way of a Supplementary Estimate later in the year. I understood that there would not be any more Supplementary Estimates from any Department at this stage of the year but I am sure the Minister will explain to me how that is possible. Has that €100 million been spent already or has the Minister yet to announce on what it will be spent?

It appears that an extraordinary amount of money was spent by the Department on legal fees. The total is projected to be more than €6 million this year. I know that expenditure on legal fees was in the range of €5 million last year and the year before, although it was projected to be much less. How many lawyers are employed in the Department? I ask this in the context of what seem to be extraordinarily high legal costs.

Will I be able to come back in later to ask some questions about next year's budget?