Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is highlighting an important issue about the activity of young people and the fact that they should be able to do some of that in school. Improved PE facilities account for a large part of the enormous amount of money being spent in upgrading schools. Any worthwhile initiative in this whole programme is, of course, good. The Deputy will agree that children spend less than 20% of their overall time in school. However, they learn much of the basics of PE training, gym work etc. there, so that is important.

I do not buy the argument that obesity comes about through lack of training, though. The only research that I have seen showed that 35 years ago obesity related to 5% of the young population. Now it is approximately 15%. At a time when people had nothing, children were out playing and running around school yards. Now it is a different issue. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of those figures. Other countries have done similar studies which showed the levels of obesity to be relatively low. Having said that, facilities are important and prevention is far better than cure. It is good to have people active, as encouraged by the sports and community grants.

Some 4,000 communities have received money in the last six or seven years that is helping to build a really good capital base of facilities where children can go, whether it is scouts, football, community halls or whatever. The more activity there is as regards PE and gym training in school yards or halls, the better and this is important. I do not disagree with the Deputy. Some €2 billion has been spent on upgrading schools in the last few years, which is an enormous amount. Every year about 1,200 projects are being finished and all of them are improving the facilities.

As regards this issue it is important that the community is linked to the school. We are now seeing in the 3,000 or so schools across the State an enormous amount of work in terms of schools and local facilities. There is no point in building school halls that are not being used during the day. The use of such facilities should be closely monitored and that is what the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism is doing.

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