Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The people of north Wicklow who experienced the awful tragedy of the death of two firemen are forced to campaign for funding for a full-time fire service for an area which has experienced huge increases in population but no commensurate increase in essential services. Across the State, teachers are forced to teach children in prefabs. In particular, I am aware of a number of Gaelscoileanna which have been forced to operate under these totally unacceptable circumstances. In the Taoiseach's constituency, teachers in Gaelscoil Barra in Cabra have been teaching classes in dilapidated prefabs for ten years. In Clondalkin, Gaelscoil Na Camóige has been existing in second-hand prefabs for 15 years. In the Tánaiste's constituency, Gaelscoil Portlaoise's classrooms are made up of eight prefabs for the past nine years. Gael Scoil Gort Alainn in Montenotte, Cork, has been occupying temporary buildings for the past 14 years — there are many more examples.

In the Dublin commuter belt, there has been a complete failure to put in place the education facilities needed. As a consequence, we have the situation where some schools turned away non-Catholic children. In one area of west Dublin, Lucan, Sinn Féin representatives have been inundated with requests from non-Catholic parents to help get their children into primary school. That is some situation in the 21st century when we are talking about developing high-end marketing.

In areas like west Dublin and in particular Dublin 15, parents are putting their children's names down when they are born and are still forced to camp outside schools for registration in a new term. More and more children are being forced to wait until they are five years of age before admission to school.

The €95 million extra allocated for primary school building is welcome but, as the Minister said, there are 13,000 new enrolments due next year. That €95 million will barely cover the school places needed for them let alone go towards improving the conditions in dilapidated schools right across the State. We will have to scrutinise in more detail the spending plans of the Department of Education and Science.

The programme for Government promised to double the income limit eligibility for parents of children under six years of age and treble it for parents of children with a disability. It has reneged on that commitment. The Government could well afford to help more low income people, to increase it to €250 per week for 2008 as demanded by the Combat Poverty Agency — hardly a radical organisation. Even this would not have gone far enough because all those earning on or below the minimum wage should be eligible for the medical card. They have failed to prioritise access to primary care in this budget.

The state of the health service has been under a particular spotlight in recent weeks and rightly so. Figures from Trolleywatch indicate that whereas there were 159 patients on trolleys and chairs in accident and emergency departments on 4 December last year, yesterday there were 268 patients which is almost a doubling of the number.

Services across the State are overstretched. For example, the Rotunda hospital's capacity was so overcrowded during the summer that women were moved into the hotel adjacent to the hospital for treatment. Children in need of orthodontic treatment in the Kerry area are currently on waiting lists for six years.

In the health service we continue to have end-of-year budget over-runs and the Health Service Executive has imposed cuts in services to patients. In my own region, the latest fallout from HSE cuts is that there will be no elective surgery in Dundalk hospital in December. We have already seen medical and general surgical elective work postponed in Navan and the planned closure of the orthopaedic unit at Navan for the whole month of December. What savings are involved in the closing of that unit? The nurses are still employed on a salary, as are consultants and administrative staff. The HSE has admitted this fact. To be fair, my colleague, Councillor Joe Reilly, researched this matter and got to the bottom of it.

See this speech in context