asked the Minister for Education when approval will be given for the construction of a new national school at the Neale, Claremorris, County Mayo; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
37.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Mayo New National School.
36.
asked the Minister for Education when it is proposed to commence work on Neale national school, Claremorris, County Mayo.
I proposed to take Questions Nos. 36 and 37 together with your permission. It is understood from the Commissioners of Public Works that working drawings have been completed and a cost plan is being prepared for the proposed new national school at the Neale, Claremorris, County Mayo.
It is not possible to state when the project will be ready to proceed to contract.
On a point of order, the Minister states that he proposes to take Questions Nos. 36 and 37 together and he also proposed a similar method of dealing with Questions Nos. 31 and 32.
It is not a point of order.
He said "with your permission". What is the procedure in lumping questions together?
It is well established that the consent or permission of the Ceann Comhairle is not necessary to take questions together and that the Chair has no control over whether a Minister answer questions individually or groups a number of them together.
Is it available to the person posing the questions to ask the Minister not to lump the replies together?
It is open to the Deputy to do so but if the Minister proceeds otherwise nothing can be done about it.
You understand that this is a device being used by Ministers, not in regard to these two questions, to keep the regard to other questions, to keep the number of supplementaries to the minimum and I do not regard that as being strictly in accordance with procedure.
This is not a point of order and the Chair will not be influenced in regard to the number of supplementaries by whether the questions are being taken individually or together.
My recollection is that your predecessor circulated Ministers of the outgoing Government with the suggestion that we drop the use of the words "with your permission". Presumably you will adhere to that.
The Chair understands that before this occupant took the Chair a circular was sent to Departments pointing out that the consent of the Chair was not necessary. That is what I have been telling Deputy Flynn.
I think he went a little further and suggested that we should not use these words.
Concerning Question No. 36, is the Minister aware of the recent report by the medical health officer concerning the condition of the school in question? Would he be prepared to quote the relevant section concerning infestation of the school? Is he aware of a recent report concerning the condition of the Neale school and in particular the section which relates to the infestation of the school?
I am not aware of any such report. I have not got that report on my file. If the Deputy will make the information available to me I will consider it.
Will the Minister indicate the priority rating attached to approval for that school? I take it he has a priority list of approvals under his Vote. In what position is the Neale school on that priority list?
That is a separate question. I could not give the Deputy any indication as to where the school in question is on the priority list. He has made a case to me and I will have the matter examined. I could not give any more information at this stage.
One last supplementary question.
Has the Minister a priority list for capital funding of schools in his Department at this time?
Yes.
In that case I cannot see why he could not answer the previous question. What position does the Neale school occupy on that list?
That is another supplementary.
The Deputy asked me where his school was on the list. I told him that at this stage I could not tell him. If he puts down a question I will reply to it. I answered the question he asked me.
Question Time is over.
That is not good enough. The Minister said he has a priority list and he will not indicate where the school is on that list.
The remaining questions will appear on tomorrow's Order Paper. An announcement by the Taoiseach.