Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I very much appreciate the Minister being here to take this debate. I hope we can find a successful resolution to the issue at Burrow national school in Sutton, which I visited some weeks ago in order to talk to the principal and members of staff.However, the children are still learning in 20-year-old prefab buildings. In fact, one of the teachers, who is a teacher there now, is a past pupil of Burrow national school and remembers her own primary education taking place there. I want to raise the prefab replacement scheme, which was in place in 2011 and 2012. I seem to remember that the Department of Education and Skills invested in a scheme to achieve two aims, namely, to re-employ people in the construction sector who had fallen foul of the crash and to move children out of prefabricated buildings and ensure that as many as possible of the country's classrooms were permanent structures. Every child deserves to be in a permanent classroom. I am sure the Minister agrees with that. We do not want to see 20-year-old prefabs in any national school in the country. Can we work together to ensure that the children of Burrow national school have permanent classrooms and that these prefabricated buildings are done away with, so those children and the school's future pupils can look forward to a better future? It is a fantastic school that is doing a huge amount, but the children deserve more than the 20-year-old prefabricated structures in which they are learning. I would appreciate a positive response from the Minister.