Margaret Conlon (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

——otherwise, we can bury our heads in the sand and in four or five years face up to stark reality and face horrendous cuts, greater than those included in yesterday's announcement.

As a former teacher, I welcome that within the capital budget €150 million has been specifically earmarked for school building and insulation-energy efficiency measures. The re-tendering process pursued by the Minister for Education and Science is delivering better prices of between 15% and 20%. Therefore, the same funding is going much further in this new economic climate, enabling more school projects to go to construction and us to get better value for money.

See this speech in context