Cecilia Keaveney (Fianna Fail)

Schooling is far more than the building, as we have proven on many occasions. The Minister is providing more support for the development of buildings.

There is also the issue of helping teachers to minimise costs in the school. A school principal told me a couple of years ago that the school's minor works money was being used for photocopying. The school spent €18,000 on photocopying. I wondered how the school could manage that when there were 200 children in the school. It sounded way beyond what was possible. In the context of increases in the cost of water and electricity, much can be learned in school beyond what we would call the central disciplines of reading, writing and arithmetic. This would develop very important skills for the growing child who will be living in a tighter economy over the next few years. These types of lessons will prove to be very important.

The Minister should continue to invest in teachers. The 19,000 teachers and special needs assistants working with pupils with special needs must be in place.

I agree with the concept of focusing on primary education but we must consider the pre-primary sector also. I refer to children up to six years old. We are facing financial difficulties and in this respect pre-primary development is the key to children's success at primary and post-primary levels.

Many companies and organisations, including the Houses of the Oireachtas, replace computers after two years, sometimes earlier. I cannot see why a little imagination could not be used by the organisations and schools, under the aegis of the Department, to maximise the numbers of computers in schools. However, it is not enough to put computers in schools. In 2000, the number of students per computer in Irish primary schools was 16.3 and this was reduced to 9.1 in 2005. The corresponding figures at post-primary level were 10.9 and 7. One of the most important tasks is to upgrade the software. It is grand to have computers but if the software is not up to speed with current needs, we are not as far ahead as we want to be.

My time has concluded but there are many more points I could make. The economic climate will become more difficult but the Minister should continue to focus on the building programme, bearing in mind the economies of scale he has highlighted recently.