Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Then my question with regard to whether there is a plan to roll out PE halls to schools around the country in to facilitate the subject of physical education stands. In respect of the figures we were given, I understandably took a look at those which went down rather than up for 2019. One of these is subhead A7, which relates to the salaries, wages and allowances of non-teaching staff in primary and post-primary schools.

There has been considerable concern about secretarial and caretaking staff, particularly those who are not paid directly by the Department. Will the Minister clarify if they are included in this statistic or if there is a separate allocation on account of the fact that they are paid directly by the school? They are in a much less advantageous position than others working in the same school.

There is a 2% reduction in the allocation for teacher education, which seems to be mostly continuing professional development, CPD, and related to the running of education centres. Will the Minister explain why there is a reduction? There is an increase of 15% under subhead A15 for primary and post-primary infrastructure. As it includes temporary school premises, can the Minister say if there is still widespread use of prefabs and whether there has been a significant increase or decrease in the length of time students have to spend in prefabs while waiting for the provision of more long-term school buildings? It is of concern to all of us that some children spend a large number of their school years in prefabs. There is a policy to reduce the length of time they spend in prefabs, but how successful have we been in achieving this? One needs prefabs when they are required for urgent use because the population in a given area is growing.