Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Next year will be the 90th anniversary of 1916 and we will be in the run up to the 100th anniversary. The part of the proclamation with which most Irish people most easily identify, regardless of political party affiliation or none, is that which urges us to cherish all the children of the nation equally. Instead, in Dublin West along with Dublin North and areas such as Kildare and Meath, which are the fastest growing parts of the country, parents sit around breakfast tables crying because they do not have certainty about their five year old children — not their four year old children — accessing a school place.

In one school in my constituency, rightly called Mary Mother of Hope national school, for a child to qualify for a place the following September, they would have to have been four by the previous December. St. Brigid's national school in the leafy lanes of Castleknock was built in 1971 and it has its fair share of very prosperous parents. However, the pupil teacher ratio in a number of classes is almost 30:1. One might say this is an advantaged area to follow on the comments made by Deputy Crowe. Castleknock has its fair share of millionaires. However, there are 16 children from the Traveller community on the Navan Road in the school and who are cherished by it. There are also 70 children for whom English is not their mother tongue. The school has special needs. Some of those needs are being addressed by the conversion of a broom cupboard into school space. In another part of the school, a toilet has been converted. Only last weekend masonry fell in the school yard but, thankfully, nobody was injured.

Shakespeare spoke about the seven ages of man but this Minister for Education and Science and this Government have seven stages of torture, which they will elongate if they can, in determining when and how schools get the necessary resources. It is simply stunning that last week a list of schools proceeding to architectural consultation stage was published as a gain by the Minister when any Deputy on the Government or the Opposition benches knows that there are at least another four stages. This is not management but is an Irish version of torture where the issue is dragged out.

With the introduction of resource teachers in schools with various specials needs, the overall ratio is being compressed but often resource teachers have no place in which to work. If the Government delivered on its promise to reduce the pupil teacher ratio to 20:1, an immediate building programme, the purchase of land adjacent to existing schools and the purchase of more land for new schools in greenfield areas would be needed to make that ratio a reality. Who are Fianna Fáil's friends? It is not children or their parents; it is the developers in the tents at the Galway races. They call the score when it comes to buying and selling land which affects all our children's futures.

In the case of Mary Mother of Hope national school — let us hope she is looking down on us — the Department of Education and Science paid a builder and prominent Fianna Fáil supporter €3 million for three acres and said it could not get another two acres to build the size of school necessary. The Government stands indicted. If it cannot manage, it should move aside and let another Government meet the needs of children.

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