Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

That intervention means we have 30 seconds of injury time.

I walked past motor cars worth €50,000, €60,000 or €70,000 to meet crying parents in affluent Kildare who could not get their children into a school. One aspect of the public sector is that no matter how rich one is, and happily there are now many wealthy, well-doing and well-paid people in our society, there are some things money cannot buy. It cannot buy a special needs teacher for one's child, but if one is paying taxes, one can get access to that resource, but the Government is not ensuring that kind of provision.

There is no coherent planning. The Minister of State has read out a load of statistics about increases but if one were to apply the same logic, the increase in the labour market and in the population make the increases in the provision of additional teachers and special needs assistants meaningless. We are simply running to stand still.

I invite the Minister of State to examine the constituencies where there is natural and real population growth and recognise the chaos. There is nobody in the Department of Education and Science linking the granting of planning permissions that generate the demand for housing with the growth in population.

I will make one point because my time is limited. I invite the Minister of State to request the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to introduce a planning regulation that would provide that if there is not adequate school provision in the area in which it is proposed to grant planning permission, along with adequate draining facilities, roads etc., such planning permission would not be granted. Houses are being built. It is not rocket science to work out that if planning permission for houses is granted in year one and construction starts in year two that in year five or six the patter of little feet will come knocking on the door of the local primary school. There is no joined up thinking in regard to that.

I could say much more but I am sharing time with my colleagues. There is no proper planning. The Department of Education and Science is an island. It is surrounded by private affluence and is engaged in public squalor.

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