Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

This is a joint motion with the Fine Gael Party. Thousands of families do not know if their children will have a school place to go to next September. Thousands of other families worry their child will go into a class with 30 or more and will not be able to cope. Hundreds of thousands of small children serve their time in prefabs or other make-shift temporary school buildings, hopelessly inadequate to their needs despite living in a modern successful economy.

Like the horrendous and inhumane treatment seen on last night's "Prime Time Investigates" programme on accident and emergency departments in hospitals, this is a failure of the Government to do what it was elected to do — to plan and manage basic services for the people. The Government takes in enough taxes. Its amendment to the motion simply lists the amounts being spent on educational services. I acknowledge as more money comes into the coffers of the Minister for Finance, more will be spent on education. The percentage, however, of our income spent on education has fallen from 5.4% of GDP in 1994 to 4.6% in 2006. There should be less self congratulation on the Government's part. The amendment shows its distance from the reality of the situation.

The Government's job is to spend revenue appropriately, which is hardly rocket science. Other countries manage it with relative ease. They know where population growth will occur and plan ahead for roads, schools, hospitals, leisure facilities etc. that people moving into newly developed homes will need. There is an order and competence about service provision and governments take responsibility for it. Not so in Ireland. The two most likely options for junior infants in rapidly growing communities are a prefab or a temporary building. It can be anything from a scout hall to a disused factory unit, from a rugby club to a marching band room, as is the case in one school in the Limerick East constituency.

It is fortunate if a real purpose built classroom is available before a child reaches sixth class. If a child is born into a family living in part of County Kildare, there will be no room until he or she is nearly six years of age. A child living in one of the burgeoning estates in west Dublin will not know if he or she can go to school in September. If the child does get a place, most likely it will be in a class with more than 30 others. Children attending St. Michael's in Inchicore know the school will close but do not know if any other school will take them on. Although it is well for the Minister for Education and Science to admonish the Christian Brothers for closing the school, in effect she did little apart from requesting the order to keep the school open.

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