Brendan Ryan (Labour)

In supporting the motion tabled by my colleagues in Fine Gael I am anxious not to behave like a typical Opposition Member bashing the Government for the numerous things it has not done. It is particularly difficult to bash the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science, Deputy Brian Lenihan, because of his agreeable nature, similar to that of his late father and aunt, who is Leader of the House. Questions arise, however, because some schools are in appalling condition, as pointed out by the INTO and parents' groups, following five years of unprecedented prosperity.

This is either a resource or management issue. I was a member of a board of management in a good school that my son attended. It was categorised as disadvantaged which proved to be an enormous advantage for the school in terms of funding. It was run by a superb principal and the parish priest was chairman of the board of management. He had the good sense to allow the principal to do his job without interfering and gave him as much support as he could, but he was in a state of perpetual frustration with the Department because of delays and uncertainty.

The parish priest had no problem providing the 15% local contribution for the school's building projects, but he had a problem servicing the overdraft for the 85% of funding that the Department was supposed to pay. It often took the Department two years to do so. One of this good, but naive, man's learning experiences during my term on the board was his discovery that the tabling of a parliamentary question in the Dáil had a remarkable effect in terms of prompting the Department to release funds for projects that had been completed. The hint of a parliamentary question produced an accelerated response. However, it should not take a Member of the Oireachtas raising such a delay in either House to have the State honour its part of a contract speedily, which involved 85% of the funding for one project in this school.