Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

The reasons for the savings in 2011 were a lower than estimated spend by the National Centre for Technology in Education, the technological support service we had, due to a combination of staff cost savings arising from the moratorium, discontinuation of lower priority activities and deferral of projects. We had a second national series of e-learning seminars that were envisaged and costed but they did not proceed. We had lower than expected rental costs from the schools broadband programme due to the rolling out of new services under the second phase of contracts. That is not the programme with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources but rather one for which we are tendering. There was a €1.1 million saving resulting from anticipated expenditure under the schools broadband capital programme. We are advancing with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the issue of availability of broadband to all post-primary schools. The aim is to have that completed by the end of next year, and there is no delay in that regard.

The focus we have on ICT in general is very much the focus of the Minister. We are looking to ensure that ICT has a real impact on teaching, learning and assessment, and we really want to build in the use of ICT in teaching and learning rather than having it as a separate process. It must be embedded. We are undertaking an ICT census of schools in this quarter. There was a previous census in 2005 which mainly related to ICT planning, infrastructure and continuing professional development. This will be a broader process and we are trying to get to the issue of the extent to which ICT is embedded in teaching and learning. We hope the results of the census will provide a sound research base that will, in turn, inform key policy decisions in integrating ICT and teaching and learning over the next three to five years. The census covers primary, post-primary and special schools.