Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan. I also welcome the Opposition motion in that it gives us the opportunity to discuss a very important issue, to which I attach the highest priority in terms of expenditure and investment decisions. The motion refers to broken promises, although the Government is only six months into a five year term. One will only be able to judge if the promises are kept towards the end of that term.

Expenditure on both primary and secondary school buildings has moved on to a totally different plane. I was looking at the Books of Estimates for the mid-1990s and expenditure amounted to between approximately £30 million to £40 million for both types of schools. Such expenditure now amounts to almost €150 million for primary school buildings and €184 million for secondary school buildings. An important priority is to maintain expenditure at that much higher level.

There is a huge backlog which obviously did not arise this year or last year or even during the term of the previous Government; it arose much earlier. It relates to school buildings from, in some cases, the lean times of the 1930s and 1940s and, in others, to the 19th century. Even schools from the 1960s or 1970s are not necessarily built to the standard of those constructed today.