Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

To answer Deputy Gilmore's questions directly, about 4% of the total student population is being educated in what he calls temporary accommodation in terms of the full school-going population. That is the size of the problem he is addressing. It will always be the case in trying to deal with increased student intake in rapidly developing areas that schools need to be provided where heretofore there were not even communities. Priority has been given to this and to children with special needs. Classes have been provided for autism, for instance, and there are 200 special classes now in the system, whereas we had none before. Those types of situations must be catered for and in the context of that there will be continuing occasions, I suggest, where temporary accommodation is part of the solution. It is not the permanent answer to the provision of education in schools, but given the practicality involved in providing for the extra teacher because of the growth in intake or whatever for the following September, this is what happens. There is good quality temporary accommodation in place, as well as poor quality temporary accommodation because it has been there for too long and some schools have not been able to get their projects completed. This is against a background of a €640 million capital allocation this year for schools alone.

See this speech in context