Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The developing areas unit is tasked with meeting the immediate needs of areas experiencing significant increases in their school-going populations while the forward planning section is responsible for identifying more medium-term needs so that we can plan for them well in advance. To further strengthen the Department's planning capabilities, a geographic information system is currently being commissioned. This system will be capable of bringing together information from a number of different sources on increasing population trends in areas of rapid growth. In this way, we will be able to develop a digital picture of the country using these various sources of population-related data that will identify potential gaps in current or future school provision. I say this with the rider that one can get population shifts that do not become known to the local community or schools until 1 September. This has happened in areas in the past where people moved during the summer and suddenly looked for school places. Hopefully, the buildings will now be available for them, particularly with the provision of new buildings in the developing areas.

This Government has never underestimated the scale of the challenge facing us in ensuring that in the region of 4,000 schools all over the country have good quality accommodation. Significantly increased resources for the building programme have enabled record progress to be made. Transparency has been prioritised with the development, publication and implementation of the clear criteria which are used to prioritise applications for building works. There also has been an emphasis on improving value for money through the range of initiatives I have outlined. We are proud of what has been achieved in the past few years but, equally, I am fully conscious of the needs that remain throughout the country and am determined to address them, bearing in mind the needs that exist and taking into account the amount of money that is available to the Government from the taxpayers and other sources to enable us to do as much as we would like at any one time.