Mary Moran (Labour)

I welcome this morning's Cabinet agreement to roll out broadband to all secondary schools. All 650 secondary schools will have high-speed by 2014 - 200 this year, 200 next year and the final 250 in 2014. Having high-speed broadband will have a major impact on how teachers use ICT in their teaching and I must commend the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, and the Government on this very welcome initiative. As a former teacher, who only left the classroom nine months ago without any broadband or other access to the Internet in the classroom, I regard this as a great Government initiative. It will boost learning opportunities and ultimately make a major contribution to the competitiveness of the future workforce.