The selection of school building projects by the Department of Education will not be influenced by local lobbying, the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said.
"Those who think that they can exert pressure to make me change my mind are wrong," he told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science. "The schools will be chosen on the basis of priorities set by the Department's building unit and on no other basis."
The Minister is currently talking to the Department of Finance about creating a five-year budget to improve school buildings in "a planned and coherent manner". This would allow the Department to say exactly when a school project would go to tender, when construction would begin and when it would be finished.
Defending the Government's record, Mr Dempsey warned that building project plans would be affected by the Exchequer's financial difficulties. "We are going to be in a tight financial situation over the next number of years. We are not going to have a huge amount of money in this area."
However, considerable pro-gress has already been made. More than €1.2 billion has been spent on primary, post-primary and college buildings since 1998.
The number of teachers has risen by 3,690 since 1997, while the pupil/teacher ratio this year will stand at 18.4 - "the lowest it has been in the history of the State".
He said he had cut back the 2002 building programme drafted by his predecessor, Dr Michael Woods, when the Government's budgets worsened. "The schools that were on the list are still on the list. There is a commitment to do those schools and those commitments will be honoured. But, like every other area, we cannot live in an airy-fairy world saying that we can produce left, right and centre. The commitments were contingent upon the economic situation of the time."
Although he did not identify any particular school, the Minister appeared irritated at the campaigns being waged by a number of them to get new buildings.
Most 2002/3 projects are progressing. "Any outstanding ones will be considered strictly on priority and need. If they are found to be sufficiently in need, they will go ahead. If they don't, they won't. And it doesn't matter how many times they appear on RTÉ, TV3," Mr Dempsey told the committee, which is chaired by Clare Fianna Fáil TD, Mr Tony Killeen.
"I can certainly understand the frustration felt by schools that believed that their project would proceed to tender and construction in late 2002 and early 2003 and subsequently did not.
"However, you can understand I could only allow projects advance within the funding available for capital projects at primary levels.
"I had to act responsibly and look at the programme for the next two to three years. Part of the difficulty is that in the past we, all of us, allowed too many projects to go forward when we did not have the money for them," he said.
"I accepted from the very start of my ministry that we have problems in the building area which need to be addressed and they are being addressed. The problems tend to overshadow the progress and commitment of this and the previous Government in tackling substandard school accommodation."
Fine Gael TD Ms Olwyn Enright expressed suspicions that the Department is conceding the demands of school building groups who are threatening to sue the State.
Meanwhile, chairman of the Progressive Democrats Sen John Minihan expressed doubts about the future of the Government's public-private partnership plans.
