Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I know it is not meant to be understood, but the ordinary people of Ireland do not realise this. There are various bands and procedures. If any school could understand where it was in the process, it would be great, but this is not the case.

There are two serious issues, the first of which concerns the quantum or sum of money. I am not talking about that today because, as a realist, I recognise there is sometimes additional money and that, in times of economic stringency, there are cutbacks. However, what is driving people to distraction and what is almost bringing the Adjournment debates of the House to a standstill is the inability to find out what is going on regarding a school project or what is being proposed. One of the Minister's predecessors, Deputy Noel Dempsey, decided to dispose of all the trouble and simply list the schools in order of priority. This has always been sought and the reason is very simple. If the Minister created his list for this year and went to a Cabinet meeting at which it was said the list would have to be cut back by 5%, he would simply retain his priority list and tell schools that, instead of having their projects start on 1 January, they would start on 1 September. They might not like that but they would understand it. If the Minister states a place outside Balbriggan had a population of ten three years ago and now has a population of 5,000, thus warranting a school, it is reasonable and people cannot argue with it. This is what is required.

Before I start being more critical of the Minister, I will agree with him on one point. I refer to his recent initiative to work out how many schools an area is entitled to. When I was INTO general secretary, I forecasted this would happen. We proceeded from circumstances in which no one could open a school to circumstances in which every one could do so, but then schools stopped receiving recognition. We are now at a stage in which there is a very welcome variety of schools, including gaelscoileanna, special schools, multidenominational schools, and French and German schools. This is all very well but this needs to be controlled from the point of view of the taxpayer. I accept we need to be sensible about the matter and I agree with the Minister in this regard.

If someone from the Minister's constituency writes to the Department in respect of a school, he or she receives a response stating the school is on a band of a particular number from one to four. The Minister is familiar with the bands but very few are. People believe the bands are like the rungs of a ladder and that if one is on the first, one is on one's way to the second. When they are told by the Department they are on a specified band — for example, the one that means they are ready to go — they believe their school is ready to be built. However, they are then told that after being on bands, they must proceed to stages.

There are approximately 70 pages in the design team procedures, which I know the Minister has never read because he is far too sensible. The procedures involve the appointment of a design team. There is a preliminary design stage, followed by a design stage, involving a sketch design. This is followed by a detailed sketch design, a tender evaluation, a tender action and award, construction, handover and final account. Each of these stages has a million subsections.

This system of stages replaces the older one which involved the same length of time but with a different number of steps, just to add to the confusion. People believe that when they progress from the bands to the stages, they are ready to proceed to tender on foot of receiving planning permission. They do not realise that going out to tender is only that and it does not mean one can proceed to build. When the authorities behind a school are ready to go, they discover the Minister's intervention into the priority list. At the end of year, the Minister has another look at the list and says he does not like the inclusion of two particular schools, perhaps for the very best of reasons, and replaces them with two others that were never on the list. Schools on the list this year, happy and relaxed in the belief that they are moving along, see the new list for next year and realise they are not on it at all. I am not exaggerating as what I outline is happening.

We are losing money hand over fist. There is a hard-working group of civil servants in the building section of the Department who are not allowed to proceed with their work because there is no process. They are fending off 3,000 schools every day that are asking questions. They are trying to make excuses. I once gave the example of staff in my office ringing the building section for information on a process only to be told they could not be given an answer and would have to ring the Minister's office. We rang the Minister's office and were told we should be ringing the building section, which we had already rung. We rang it again and were told to hold while the matter was being examined. The phone was put on hold and the member of staff in question lifted another phone — we could hear all this going on — to ring the person in the building section to whom my personal assistant had been speaking five minutes earlier. The member of staff returned to us with the answer on the phone. Is this good management? It is not.