Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I hope the Minister of State has positive news. Since the Minister of State has interrupted, I would have expected someone from the Department of Education and Science rather than the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to have replied to this debate. It is an insult to me and to the House. I saw the Minister leaving. We have 22 Ministers of State so why can a Minister from the Department of Education and Science not answer my question? This is the third time I have put it down for the Adjournment debate and I was hoping we would have an announcement.

There is a major problem with schools in Dublin but the west is being left behind because this school project was ready to go to tender. The children have to vacate their building by June this year. This is the third time they have moved. The project is through the planning stage and we thought there would have been an statement a week or ten days ago, when the Minister was announcing the school programme. It has not been announced and I want to know why. When will the announcement be made and when will the project go to tender so that it can be built and the pupils will no longer be in rented accommodation? As I have said, there have been three moves already. I want to know what is going on in the Department of Education and Science. It is ridiculous that these projects take so long to progress from stage to stage in 2008.

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle has served as a Minister. Why have Ministers not taken control of the Department of Education and Science? Why does it take so many stages and so long in Tullamore and elsewhere to build a school? In 1995 the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was part of a Government in which I was a backbencher. In that year there was a case involving school which was infested with rats. Within a year work on the school was completed because the matter was pushed through every stage. I would prefer to see 30 schools announced for one year and built within that timeframe or soon afterwards instead of this stage by stage system. Teachers, pupils and parents are frustrated, as am I, because this is the third time I have tabled this matter on the Adjournment.

What is happening in the Department of Education and Science and when will the announcement be made so that we may know whether this project is going ahead?

See this speech in context