Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. I would be pleased if he would stay for the Private Members' debate but that environmental issue appears to have been grabbed by the Department of Transport. I believe the M3 should be the concern of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government rather than of the Minister for Transport but that is a matter for another debate.

The Estimates cover so much it is hard to deal with them in detail so I have selected a few issues which I wish to discuss and examine carefully. The Estimates are only a forerunner of the budget. Whatever happens in the budget is the real game. That is where the Estimates stop being a drama and become real. I believe that the first move on taxation should apply to the lower paid. People on the minimum wage should be outside the tax net. I make no apologies for saying that this is where our priorities should lie. The Minister hinted that his thinking lies in that direction.

Doing what I suggest, in conjunction with the indexation or widening of the tax bands, is the way to ensure that there will not be a huge number of people at the higher rate. I re-emphasise, however, that the most important factor is that people on the minimum wage should be removed from the tax net. I give full credit to the Government for the number of people who, during the past ten years or so, have been removed from the tax net. That is important and we should recognise and acknowledge what has been done. We should continue to remove those on lower incomes from the tax net because it will give them the motivation and incentive to work.

We need to be understanding in terms of our perception of the growth rate. At times during the 1990s, there was a growth rate of 10%. For a large part of that decade, growth rates reached between 6% and 9%. Ireland cannot cope with such high rates of growth because they lead to the creation of congestion and levels of demand we cannot meet. They also make the population extremely unhappy. I have stated on many occasions during the past ten years that — this is an instinctive or intuitive response because I cannot prove it — in terms of my experience of negotiating and the consideration of economic factors and underlying economics, a growth rate of approximately 4.5% is the highest with which we can cope and sustain. The rate is likely to be over 5% this year and, in my opinion, this will lead to our encountering difficulties again.

The Minister commented on a number of occasions recently about the importance of the development of road infrastructure. On the radio this morning, he stated that he is of the opinion that our road infrastructure will come right in the next few years. He also intimated where investment is being made. That is another matter with which we will deal during Private Members' time. We are happy about some but not all of this investment. I would like to see a greater investment in rail infrastructure. A telling comment was made on the Order of Business last week by Senator Kitt who referred to morning reports about the level of traffic entering Galway and stated that a first class rail service from Tuam to Galway city could be operational within six months, whereas it would take six years to put in place a road of motorway quality on the same route. We should bear that in mind when considering the position of Navan.

In the past two years, there has been a great deal of criticism about the Government's commitment to benchmarking. I wish to place on the record the fact that the period in question has witnessed the least ever disruption in the civil and public service. When we set about instigating benchmarking, it was our goal to achieve the great prize, namely, industrial peace and stability within the public sector. The latter has been achieved at good value to the State.

There has been much discussion about overseas development aid since the relevant Minister of State, Deputy Conor Lenihan, was appointed. ODA is extremely important but there is another issue of similar importance which relates to matters outside of this jurisdiction, namely, our commitment to everyone on this island. We should consider, within the debate on the Estimates, making a significant investment in the peace process in terms of bridge-building and cross-community operations on both sides of the Border in order to ensure that the said peace process finds roots among members of ordinary communities. The DUP has stated that £1 billion should be invested in the North. In my view, some of that money should be invested in the peace process by means of supporting groups such as Co-operation Ireland and others which are doing extraordinary work in that area.

As regards education, the Minister for Education and Science has given a clear indication that she will be giving specific consideration to primary education. I would like her to give a commitment to get rid of all untrained personnel from primary schools. That should be one of her first priorities. She should also give a commitment to deal with children with special educational needs by making an investment in that sector. Class sizes must also be reduced, which would mean the provision of additional teachers. There will, therefore, be a need for a concentrated building programme to keep these matters moving in parallel.

We need to appoint an additional 500 teachers in order to eliminate the use of untrained personnel. In terms of class sizes, we will need to appoint a couple of thousand teachers over a number of years. There has been a major row about whether the Minister can meet the promise of the Government to achieve this within its term of office. Rather than getting hung up on how long it will take to achieve, I would prefer if a structured process to implement all that is contained in the programme for Government and to meet the other needs relating to primary education was put in place. If it took a year longer to achieve the relevant goal, people might argue about it but they would be happy once they see progress being made.

The progress to which I refer will be measured by the employment of additional teachers and by ensuring that the colleges of education take on as many students as possible, that the postgraduate qualification is put in place and that a conversion course — which was approved by the then Minister, Deputy Martin, many years ago but which was subsequently blocked at some point — for post-primary teachers who want to continue their careers by becoming fully-qualified primary teachers is instituted. The latter could be achieved very easily by the provision of a series of short-term modular courses. Such a course would eliminate many problems and provide greater flexibility between the primary and post-primary sectors. People may not be aware that a significant number of qualified and trained post-primary teachers are working in the primary sector. Unfortunately, these individuals are considered unqualified in the primary sector and they would welcome the opportunity to become fully qualified. These small matters to which I refer could be dealt with in the context of the Estimates.