Mr. Seán Cottrell:

As Mr. Clerkin pointed out, trolleys are effective for a lot of schools.

Teacher training has become an issue, but as technology has moved on, it has become more user-friendly and even people with minimal computer skills find the new software far more intuitive. I certainly do not hear people screaming for teacher training as much as for things like tech support or capital investment.

On the hardware side, a lot of multinationals now use corporate social responsibility policies to have staff in schools where they live. That is fine, but there are not multinationals throughout the country and we should be careful not to allow this to become a multinational response to an issue that needs to be co-ordinated nationally. We need to reach every school, not just those in the shadow of Apple or other multinationals.

I am not sure what research has been carried out into best practice, but we looked at what was happening in schools in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. They have shown that, without a shadow of doubt, technology is not a subject as such but the means by which we can improve teaching and learning. They are well ahead of us in that respect. Ten years ago every school in New Zealand had a broadband connection which was faster than anything we have even today. I am glad to hear the satellite service is being phased out because it was inadequate.

In the late 1980s when the Apple 2E computer was available with its small 7 in screen, those of us who had one thought we were made, but in those days to be a user one also had to be able to fix it when it broke down. If one was competent to repair computers, one was in demand because everybody brought his or her machine to be fixed. Schoolteachers would use their homes to fix computers and in school they were often pulled out of classrooms to be repair men and women for the staff instead of being in their own classroom. We cannot afford to have teachers solving IT problems in schools. That is not what they are paid to do.

Deputy Ciarán Cannon mentioned the need to act. I agree that there is a need for urgency. President John F. Kennedy had his man on the moon moment when he said that, by the end of the said decade, America would put a man on the moon. We need a Minister and a Government to say, likewise, that we must achieve X within three to five years. A shorter term plan might be to take one subject, be it science or mathematics, and say it will be taught through the medium of technology from junior infants through to sixth year within a certain timeframe. They should set the timeframe and put in place what is needed. We need a sense of urgency because without it, everything else will not follow. With it we can sell the vision to all education partners, the multinationals and whoever else has a role to play. Unions, management bodies and principals' associations are all on the one foot on this issue; therefore, there is no reason we cannot achieve it. If we do achieve it, we will have a lot to hope for.