Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I am quite happy for the Senator to debate this matter at any stage. I would remind him, however, that I am following the good practice of his colleague, the former Minister, Noel Dempesy, who published for the first time a complete list so that there was no politics involved, making eejits out of schools and their communities by saying "Yes, we will promise you a school". The Senator will recall that Noel Dempsey published such a list. His successor, the former Minister, Mary Hanafin, took it down on the instructions of the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. As a result, Mary Hanafin promised three times the amount of money that could be spent, as I was informed by the former Minister, Batt O'Keeffe.

I got this final list on Friday last and it was published on Monday afternoon. There was consultation with various people but there is no political shopping list attached to this. Schools are getting places and accommodation on the basis of a growing population. We currently have 500,000 primary school children and 351,000 secondary school pupils in the system, some of whom are in the Visitors' Gallery. Some 70,000 more are going to be here by the time those currently in first year are doing their leaving certificate examinations. My big nightmare is that young people will be looking into a field, rather than into a school-yard. For that reason, I am prioritising demographic demand.

If the Senator reads the text of my reply, he will see I said that in real terms a secondary school should be a minimum of about 800 to provide the necessary cover in terms of subject choice, etc. The schools to which the Senator referred do not seem to be in that particular space, but they are being brought to the point where they will be ready to go on site with the necessary designs done, if we have the money and the demographic pressures to endorse it. However, there will be no politics in the allocation of moneys for schools. It will be driven by demographic demand because Ireland is a healthy country in respect of its school population. Furthermore, where possible, schools could amalgamate or even collaborate at second level to come together to provide critical mass in order that young girls in particular could take subjects such as higher level mathematics, science and a host of other things that traditionally have been denied to them and career choices thereby cut off from them. I also would support that.