Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I note what the Minister has said and I gather from her reply that vacancies have been advertised and some people have been moved from one part of the Department to another. The unit as promised in the programme for government has been established, a point to which I will return later.

Regarding the other information the Minister gave, can she confirm that schools were told last September that no further money was available for capital projects in the calendar year 2007, that 30 schools were informed by telephone by the Department that they could not proceed to tender, that her Department is now engaging through a consultancy firm, KSN Project Management Limited, in inviting tenders dated November from would-be contractors to provide by 2 January proposals for schools that would be built and operational by 1 September next year, that she has taken no steps to provide for planning permission for these schools, that it is a blind tender for either a 16-room——

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