Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

It is failing communities, teachers and pupils. I want to use this opportunity to provide the Minister with evidence the schools building programme is not working. It is in many ways a national disaster. I also want to be helpful by proposing some solutions which I ask the Minister, in her privileged role, to consider.

It became evident during last week's meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts that the Department of Education and Science and the Government has no detailed view of the school network for which it is responsible. It does not know how many rented prefabs are in use, what equipment is in place or the size of school sites. The officials admitted the Department has no database showing the specific details of schools already in existence. The Department's Secretary General, Brigid McManus, said it would be highly desirable to be able to quote from such an inventory.

How can we adequately plan without this essential baseline data? It is obvious the Department is not aware of its stock in hand. This is a major embarrassment for the Minister and her Department. Like other speakers, I would like genuine answers to questions about what steps the Minister is taking to address this problem. I propose that the Department immediately conduct a stocktaking exercise by way of a well-constructed, one-page survey of all school buildings, including prefabs and land.

In preparation for this debate I made a series of calls to schools throughout the country. The schools building programme is too slow and is failing to meet current teaching and learning needs. The most damning comment I can make is that the Minister and the Government are fooling the public and the children of the nation in that no one is measuring how the lack of an appropriate educational and learning space is impacting on educational achievement. This is a major factor.