Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I will share time with Deputies Tom Hayes and Brian Hayes.

I will not mention any specific schools in my constituency because over the past ten years I have raised by way of parliamentary question the issue of the pupil-teacher ratio time and time again. I got the same reply time after time, explaining to me that the Government was spending more money than in 1997 and that more resources were being put into the system than then. Those replies did not deal with the issue. I was not looking for a history lesson, but wanted someone to attend to the pertinent issue at the time. The issue not only affected my constituency, which is next door to Dublin, but other constituencies throughout the country.

It is sad that during the reign of the Celtic tiger nothing was done to improve the situation. The saddest story the Government has to tell tomorrow's children is that during the reign of the Celtic tiger we had full and plenty in the land, but they ate, drank and were merry and went to the tent in Ballybrit and other places and had a great time. However, they will have to tell the children they are very sorry because they did not have the time, resources or ingenuity to improve the pupil-teacher ratio. They were unable to do so because of a combination of factors, including inadequate school buildings and the failure to recognise the problems. The buildings were old and decrepit and were the same classrooms the parents of the children attended 25 or 30 years previously.

I am not making a personal attack on the Minister and Minister of State opposite me, but it is appalling that we have come through the era of the Celtic tiger, a time when we were seen worldwide as a country of plenty and when we were boasting about the resources we had and what we could do with them, and have done nothing for our children. The Government has prehistoric attitudes to everything.

If there is one thing the Government must do, it must shake up the Department. It must stop going round in circles and making excuses. It must stop trying to find ways out of doing things, thereby ensuring nothing will be done. I urge the Minister to deal with this because the Department will strangle him if he does not.

I and others have raised the issue of the pupil-teacher ratio repeatedly over the past seven or eight years and the INTO and others came on board with us before the last general election. I remember attending a meeting of 500 or 600 people in my constituency at which promises were made by the Government party to the effect that the Government would deliver incrementally over a prescribed period. It did not deliver and has failed in that regard. Is it not sad that the Government, having codded the people for so long, is now codding the children?

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