The Government's decision to slow down the school building programme will dismay and exasperate the public. Several thousand pupils, parents and teachers must continue to endure conditions which scarcely meet basic accommodation standards.
The INTO has a bulky dossier detailing several schools which remain a blight on the education landscape. Some are rat-infested. Many are damp and dilapidated with no proper heating or sanitary facilities. Mr John Carr, general secretary of the INTO, says " we live in a country where a champion racehorse like Rock of Gibraltar enjoys better conditions than many schoolchildren".
In many cases, school communities were informed before the General Election that improvements were on the way. In the aftermath of the Estimates, the reality is now dawning that they may have to endure many more years in sub-standard premises.
The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, has inherited a full-blown accommodation crisis in our schools. Thousands of pupils and their teachers are being denied the fundamental right to decent school accommodation.
The minister is now attempting to end the scandal whereby some schools could jump the queue by placing a judicious word in some politician's ear. In January, he hopes to publish a list which will, at least, tell each school community exactly where it stands. There are plans for a rolling five-year School Modernisation Plan, involving the Departments of Education and Finance. A new structure is being put in place to end some of the confusion and the political clientelism which has permeated the entire school building programme.
But this is only part of the problem. The kernel of the issue remains the chronic underfunding of primary education in this State. The building programme at primary level - which should be a priority area - will receive just €147 million from a total education budget of over €5 billion next year.
Mr Dempsey has this year begun a process whereby funds will be shifted from second and third-level towards the primary sector. This, he says, is the best way to combat disadvantage. It is a belated initiative but one which has been widely welcomed by independent commentators and by the INTO, which has campaigned so vigorously for better standards. But if Mr Dempsey really wants to achieve change, an even greater shift of resources in the education budget is required.
Mr Dempsey is doing his best to create new, more transparent, structures for school-funding. But he should not tolerate the mess that he has inherited. He should spell it out for his Cabinet colleagues. An accommodation crisis has been allowed to develop in our schools. Emergency funding must be made available to resolve the problem quickly. The current situation is intolerable.