Vol. 519 No. 3
225 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Education and Science if, in light of his Department's commitment that all schools in the country would be supplied with an ISDN Line under the IT 2000 Programme, he will indicate when this facility will be provided to a school (details supplied) in County Wexford. [13783/00]
Under the information age schools initiative of Eircom, and in co-operation with the Schools IT 2000 initiative of my Department, every recognised school was offered the following at no cost to the school: a telephone line, either ISDN or PSTN; an Internet connection; five hours per week telephone line usage for accessing the internet.
The provision of the telephone line, whether ISDN or PSTN, took place during early 1998 and was based on the following criteria: availability of connection type; size of school; estimated usage of the line; level of ICT knowledge and activity in the school.
In response to the success of the schools IT 2000 programme, I am making £81 million available over the next three years for a new and greatly expanded programme. Under this programme every classroom will be connected to the Internet with high-speed access before the end of 2002.
