Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Our focus with regard to the capital programme has been on completing the projects to which we are contractually committed on time and within budget. This has, I am glad to say, been the case without exception, particularly for major road works, for which we must congratulate the NRA and the contractors it has employed to do these works, the most recent of which was the Waterford bypass, which was opened this week.

The Minister for Education and Science introduced a good initiative in the area of temporary and permanent accommodation by providing block grants to local boards of management which can identify and locate local contractors at competitive prices, where the building is planned in good time prior to the September in which the school intake will require the extra provision. Much work has been undertaken at local level by the use of that initiative. There will always be, as there is in any system, the requirement for some prefabrication because of the immediacy of the problem that arises and the need to provide temporary accommodation as an interim solution. As we know, there have been many major school building projects with which we have proceeded through the years, certainly during the good times, and we have seen improvements in our school building programme for not only tens or hundreds of schools but thousands of schools.

This has been against a background of historic under-investment because of the lack of resources available to Governments through the years to achieve modernisation. Particularly in education, we can all be proud of the many advances that have been made. The provision of facilities in many of our schools has been exemplary, although problems remain in developing areas, particularly where demand rises quickly. The acquisition of sites and suitable locations for schools - and the provision of the many different school models now being promoted in our education system - has brought certain pressures. However, in overall terms, the work of successive Ministers in this area has been good. I am not saying there are no problems, but there are far fewer problems now than was the case in the past.

Looking to the future, the questions of capital appraisal and the employment involved in projects are important, and will be considered by the Minister for Finance in the context of the capital budget allocation.

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