Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I want to put on record my dissatisfaction with what I would describe as the Department of evasion and smoke, masquerading as the Department of Education and Science. This is but one example of a series of replies that deliberately set out to mislead Deputies; to either lie to us in factual terms or simply to avoid answering written questions.

I will give the House an example of what I mean. I asked the following two-line written question of the Minister for Education and Science:

To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of primary schools using prefab classrooms; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

Her reply, which extends over two pages, states the following:

The information sought by the Deputy is not readily available.

While comprehensive information is held on individual school files, the Department does not yet have these details available in a format that provides readily accessible cumulative information on the overall position. It is, however, intended to address this issue as part of a general review of rental policy currently being undertaken.

In the short time available to me, I wish to make a brief statement. To double the capitation grant from its present level of €178 per primary school student over a five year period, which is in the programme for Government, would cost less than 1% of the current €9.3 billion budget of the Department of Education and Science. The Minister is incapable of responding to that request, made jointly in a letter from the patrons of the five institutions that are currently the patrons in our primary school system. She is incapable of making a response to meet the need for extra primary education resources because she simply does not know how much she is paying out by way of rental for prefabs.

The prefabs to which I refer are buildings that will have a life expectancy way in excess of what it says on the tin, so to speak. There are children going through our primary school system, in the second richest country in Europe, who will spend their entire educational life in prefabs. There are teachers who, when it rains, as it is doing now, wear wellingtons in school because they must move from one classroom to another. In the Educate Together school outside Drogheda, for example, the teachers must bring wellingtons to school because there are no corridors connecting the prefab classrooms. This is a crime against future generations.

The Minister's reply — this the third time I have sought to have it raised on the Adjournment — is a testimony to the skills of obfuscation, evasion and down-right deceit. It represents a refusal, ultimately, by those on the other side of the House to recognise that they operate in a republic in which not only are they a Government, but they are also accountable to the elected Deputies on this side of the House, to whom they must give straight answers to straight questions. The two page response to a two line question asking how many prefabs are in use begins with the words, "The information sought by the Deputy is not readily available". Is it any wonder the Department of Education and Science — what a contradiction in terms — is in utter chaos?

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