Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

This is the first admission from the Taoiseach that the national development plan is not secure and that the commitments entered into in it will no longer stand up. Last week, the Fine Gael spokesman on education, Deputy Brian Hayes, asked the newly appointed Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, if this money would be spent over the period of the plan. He said this was now an aspiration; following on the words of his predecessor, Deputy Hanafin, who said, in respect of class sizes and pupil teacher ratios that this was also an aspiration.

I remind the Taoiseach of what he said, as Minister for Finance, last December in his budget speech:

The national development plan is my top priority. Postponing or delaying it would be a major policy error. ... I am determined to roll it out as planned and thereby secure our future.

We are now being told by the Taoiseach that this is all predicated on prevailing financial circumstances. This will come as a complete shock and an absolute disappointment to the hundreds of thousands of pupils, teachers and parents throughout the country who will find that their schools are inadequately resourced in terms of ICT to compete with what is happening abroad and the challenges we face in the future. If it means this is no longer a commitment, where stands the national development plan? Where stands the commitment to metro north, the children's hospital etc.?

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has said there is not a red cent in the coffers to build a hospital in the north east. If the Taoiseach is saying that the national development plan does not stand up in terms of commitments, will he prioritise what he has said that for young people the future lies in what is between their ears and what we can give them in terms of that information resource and technology? The commitment to invest €252 million over seven years is an investment in the future. As Taoiseach, whose foreword — Transforming Ireland, A Better Quality of Life — is in this plan, will he give a commitment that at least this element of the national development plan will be honoured in full as he said last December when he delivered his Budget Statement as Minister for Finace? The future jobs, the future economic expansion of this country, the future careers of thousands of young people currently in primary school and starting secondary school depend on his answer.

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