John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I echo the sentiments of Senator O'Reilly and thank the Independent Senators for tabling this motion. The first line of the motion refers to the inordinate amount of parliamentary time consumed by a contentious stream of Adjournment motions. I have brought four of these since Christmas and I need to bring another motion next week.

I am sure Senators on all sides of the House know of examples of schools, whether primary or secondary, where there are ongoing difficulties with the schools building programme and placement of these schools on the programme. I welcome the opportunity to have a full and frank discussion about the problems that pertain to this matter.

I am disappointed by some of the sentiments I have heard. I did not hear the remarks of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Mary Hanafin, but I read what she said. It seems to me from some of the sentiments expressed by Senators on the Government side of the House that, to an extent, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth on this subject. They accept the merits of the motion yet they will vote for the Government amendment. This is rather neat as it ignores completely the motion we are discussing and the amendment does not tackle any of the substantive issues raised.

An issue that has bothered me when examining the schools accommodation system is the excessive reliance in many areas on prefabricated buildings and several previous speakers have mentioned this. I was alerted to the startling fact that since 2000, Government spending on prefabricated structures in schools has increased ninefold to more than €35 million last year. If ever there was a case of being penny-wise and pound-foolish this is it. In a response to a parliamentary question recently the Minister for Education and Science was not able to outline the number of prefabricated school buildings in the State. The Minister said that such statistics were only available on school files and not in the Department of Education and Science. This is the reason a central part of this motion proposes there should be an audit of school buildings, lands and prefabricated buildings attached to schools throughout the country.

I know of a number of schools including Coláiste Pobail Osraí — the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Haughey, was in the House some weeks ago dealing with this issue — where no site has yet been agreed for a building. It has been a struggle to get engineers from the Department of Education and Science on site to examine the options. Colaiste Pobail Osraí has had continual problems with the number of students housed in prefabricated buildings.

Scoil Airegail in Ballyhale, County Kilkenny, is a relatively modern secondary school and the main school building was built approximately 15 years ago. However, up to half the students there are accommodated in prefabricated buildings, which defeats the purpose of building a new school. Ballinkillen national school in County Carlow is another example where this is the case. The entire gaelscoil in Carrick-on-Suir which is on the edge of my constituency — my first cousin is a teacher there — is a prefabricated building. It does not have a single solid structure.

I refer to the shocking situation with regard to education in New Ross, County Wexford, which I raised recently with the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Haughey, and some of his colleagues. In this case because of the ongoing difficulties with the amalgamation of primary and secondary level, there has been no capital funding for schools in New Ross for the past six years. It was either Senator McFadden or Senator O'Reilly who mentioned that schools are installing prefabricated buildings in the playing areas. At St. Canice's national school in Rosbercon the multi-purpose room is now two classrooms and there are four prefabricated buildings in the yard. They do not have a playing area of any description anymore. There are numerous other examples throughout the country.

I echo the sentiments of Senator Joe O'Toole on the governance issues. I am not very information technology literate but I spent several hours this afternoon trying to decipher the Department of Education and Science website. To say it is not user-friendly would be putting it mildly.