Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

It is probably about six to seven weeks since I first asked this question. The Minister is either being economic with the truth, to borrow a phrase from a famous trial in the southern hemisphere, or her Department is being economic with the truth with her. She will have to satisfy herself as to which of those allegations is more accurate. It is beyond belief, after three years plus in the Department, that she has no overall view of the physical inventory of the primary school infrastructure. Any other organisation that had a chief executive — she is the chief executive of a Department — faced with a growing increase in numbers of pupils in need of physical accommodation would be able to say in spring 2008 how many primary pupils are in prefabs. She cannot say what is the age of those prefabs. She cannot say what is the cost of those prefabs. She cannot say when permanent accommodation, as in her reply to the previous question, will be put in place. Instead she will waste money on new prefabs when the parents and everybody else in that school outside Mallow, albeit with 70 odd pupils, want a permanent building. Is it any wonder her Department is rated as the most incompetent and dysfunctional of the primary major Departments? Will she agree she has presided over that for the past three to four years? Her reply is an absolute disgrace. I will continue to put down the question. No managing director of a sweet shop would survive the length of time in office that she has survived if he or she did not know what was the stock on the shelves. She does not have a clue what is the school accommodation of the primary pupils. She is a disgrace or, more to the point, her Department is a disgrace.

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