Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Does he agree that there is now a solution to this problem? We know there is a downturn in residential construction. We are being told that by the end of 2009 something like 65,000 jobs will have been lost in this sector, so there is now a capacity to build schools. Now that there is a slowdown in residential construction, which has the same skill set as that required for the building of schools, will he take the opportunity to accelerate the school building programme to bring forward a plan for the construction of permanent school rooms and extensions that principals all over the country have been applying to the Department for over a number of years? This would take 40,000 children out of pre-fab buildings and put them into the type of schoolrooms they ought to have in this day and age.

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