Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

I join Deputy Enright in welcoming the Minister of State, Deputy Haughey. I wish him well in his job and wish Deputy de Valera all the best in her retirement. We look forward to working with the new Minister of State, even if it is only for a short period.

While I do not doubt that the Government is investing considerably into school buildings, it is running very fast to stand still with the anticipated demographic changes that will see 100,000 additional children by 2013. At the present rate of progress does the Department feel it will be able to deliver or will it constantly need to play catch-up? Last night in Leixlip, the INTO claimed that 85% of primary schoolchildren in north Kildare are in excessively large classes. The Government parties have been in government for nearly ten years and these are the kinds of statistics we hear. The figures the Minister supplied to me indicate that the number of children in classes of more than 30 is increasing rather than decreasing.

Does the Minister have any radical proposals to address the issue, including, for example, implementing the recommendation of the All-Party Committee on the Constitution to compulsorily purchase land for schools at reasonable prices? Speaking before the Joint Committee on Education and Science a Department of Education and Science official stated that effectively under the current regime the Department of Education and Science is just another buyer in a buoyant market. I put it to the Minister that the Government would save money if it could acquire sites under compulsory purchase order at an early stage.

The Minister states that the school building process is being accelerated. However, we are being told that in practice it takes years to go through the Department's architectural programme and by the time the school is operational the need may be even greater, resulting in the requirement to pay for rented prefabs, which represents money that is thrown away to rich people. Does the Minister have any radical proposals to accelerate the process so that we will not find ourselves with exactly the same problem at the end of the timeframe of the national development plan?

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