Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

Every day, one reads in the national newspapers or sees on television that health specialists encourage active lives and lifestyles for young people. However, in the past three years, a crisis has developed within schools, and in particular within national schools, in which the authorities who try to run them are obliged to fundraise for all items, including cleaning, water charges, hygiene, insurance and so on. At present, most national schools curtail and restrict active participation during playtime due to the effect of overly-costly insurance and the many claims that have been taken regarding serious injuries in playgrounds.

Clearly, the Minister for Education and Science should improve insurance cover for schools. It is unbelievable that principals should be obliged to spend most of their time organising fundraisers to provide for the day to day running of schools. At present, capitation grants come to €145. How can any school maintain itself to a reasonable standard with such a grant level? I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Education and Science before the House to inquire whether she has a plan for the proper financing of primary and post-primary schools.

I read in today's newspaper that the Department of Finance is obliged to provide an additional €50 million to finance the unexpected retirement of teachers. For the past three years, almost 1,200 teachers have unexpectedly retired each year in addition to those predicted. There is a reason for this and no one is paying attention to the approaching crisis in education.

Yesterday, the Minister announced 70 projects nationwide regarding the building of primary and post-primary schools. The list included a school at Donabate, County Dublin, which was one of the few schools which were to have been built under the public private partnership, PPP, scheme. However, this plan has been abandoned and the traditional method of building will be employed. Obviously, lessons have been learned from the high costs associated with the earlier PPP schemes in Cork and Sligo——