Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

The important point for me is that I cleared the final draft with my officials on 11 February. That afternoon I did an interview with RTE which was to be held over for 12 February. I cleared the final list with my officials on 11 February and announced it officially on 12 February. I do not know what appeared.

The process involves meetings with officials who show a range of schools on the list to be brought forward but one has only a certain amount of money to spend. A critical factor for me was how to ensure that these projects could commence in 2009 and how could I be certain that I could create jobs and would not have approvals for jobs which could not commence in 2009. The position of the schools was critical.

That list covered schools around the country. I have given a commitment that the various stages of the school building will be put on the website. I apologise to the House because I understood that this information would be available before Christmas. The building unit has been extremely busy, preparing for 43 projects. We will produce 19,000 school places this year. Last year, we produced a record 12,000 places. It was no mean feat and we held many meetings to ensure that the projects we undertook could commence and give gainful employment to 4,000 extra people in the construction industry.

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