Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Has the economy committee in the Department of Finance undertaken any work on the impact of quantitative easing on economic performance? What is the likely impact of the unravelling of the quantitative easing over time on interest rates and our economy? I think there are issues bubbling in the background that have not been properly interrogated, notwithstanding other medium-term risks.

I share Deputy Howlin's concerns about schools. There seems to be a woeful lack of planning in the announcement of schools. Many schools announced four or five years ago in my constituency and around the country are on split sites or in prefabs. There is no planning and they are in crisis because they have no accommodation or very poor accommodation. It baffles me that those schools, which have heard the type of announcements we heard last week, have not been prioritised although many of them are in dire straits, because there is a lack of follow through.

The Government has a tendency to fail to act on a problem until it becomes a crisis. That tendency is manifested in housing, health and the fodder crisis. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine said a couple of weeks ago that there is no issue with fodder and it is a simple matter of transporting it around the country. A week later the co-operatives imported fodder from Britain. Something that could have been dealt with much earlier was allowed to become a crisis causing much stress and strain to the farming community.

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