Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for protection.

I know Deputy Coveney was making a political point when he put down this motion, but it is important that we take the opportunity to deal with such issues in Private Members' business. I would not wish my colleagues to think that those of us on the Government benches do not want to contribute to the debate on the roll-out of services and be a little critical when we have to be. We are always happy to do that. Deputy Collins mentioned the last general election. That was 286 days ago and all of us have become involved in different issues since then.

I will talk about Tallaght and Dublin South-West for a minute. On a previous occasion, before the election, I prevailed upon Deputy Noel Dempsey, the former Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, to come to Tallaght to visit some of my own local schools in Fettercairn, including St. Anne's school and St. Mark's junior and senior schools in Springfield estate where I live. The Minister saw for himself the worth of the schemes that are in place. I often mention that I come from a different generation in which we were lucky that the teacher had a little bit of chalk. Those are bygone days in Dublin. Now one can go into one's local school — I am sure it is no different in Wexford or anywhere else — and see the progress that has been made. There will always be gaps and criticism of the facilities provided, but there has been much progress with regard to broadband and the use of computers in our schools. When one talks to the local principals, which I do on a regular basis, they are always eager to point out that the more resources that are available the better. I know some of this falls within the remit of the Department of Education and Science, but we must continue to exert pressure to ensure that these services are properly resourced and rolled out.

I am sorry the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources is not here because I wanted to take the opportunity to congratulate him on his efforts in this regard. I do not want to be more parochial than anyone else, but I hope he will shortly take the opportunity to come to Dublin South-West and visit Tallaght. There are a few Green Party voters out there so he would be very welcome. He could then see for himself what is being achieved in our local schools. I visit schools throughout Dublin South-West on a regular basis and I see the excitement and enthusiasm that young people bring to the classroom nowadays, although it is a different generation to mine. My little granddaughter is able to access information on computers. I know this raises issues of safety and we should be careful. However, what happens in our classrooms nowadays is very positive. People can access all sorts of projects, information and programmes every day of the week. I am glad this is being done. I am also glad that school principals are saying that the roll-out of broadband under the Government programme has been positive. However, I am not afraid, as a Government Deputy, to make the point that this must continue.

Again, I do not want to be too parochial, but I will make one point. The need for advances in technology and to ensure that young people coming out of primary school and later education are conversant with computers was brought home to me recently when jobs were lost in the Jacob's factory in Tallaght. People made the point that we must continue, as an economy, to attract first-class jobs other than in the manufacturing sector, although I know there is much debate about this. In my generation students did not have be conversant with computer technology when they left school. In fact, we did not know what computers were. They were still far into the future. However, now we must ensure that this is the case. I am happy to support the Government amendment.

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