I thank the Ceann Comhairle for acceding to my request to raise this matter on the Adjournment. While I do not wish to cast aspersions on the Minister of State, I am severely disappointed that the Minister for Education and Science is not in the Chamber to do his duty. He is probably traipsing around trying to bribe teachers into accepting his wishes.
Sallins is a small picturesque village on the banks of the Grand Canal. The Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, was born and reared in a lock-house near the village. No intensive growth took place there for 150 years until 1996 when the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats councillors in the area, who formed a majority on the local authority, voted to re-zone large tracts of land in the Sallins area. Builders and landowners who were friends of the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats parties made millions in Sallins and then walked away. Absolutely no provision for the educational needs of the new population was included in the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats plan. Despite a known number of children living in the area, no provision was made for their education or for their constitutional rights.
Sallins now needs a 16-classroom school. The Fianna Fáil Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Dempsey, published a work programme for 2003, but it could be more accurately described as a no-work programme. He decided that the Sallins national school building project would not make progress in 2003 and there was no guarantee it would move ahead in 2004, so it was frozen. Yet, in reply to a parliamentary question I tabled, the Minister described the project as essential. In a further reply to the House on 25 February, the Minister said there was no money for temporary school accommodation in Sallins this year. This is despite a recommendation by the school inspector that prefabs should be provided.
There is no room in adjoining schools for the extra pupils in Sallins. The building project for Sallins has been frozen and a request for prefabs has been refused. Will the Minister tell the House where he thinks the parents in Sallins, some of whom are in the Public Gallery tonight, will find school places for their children? Where does he think they will go? Does the Minister accept that he has a constitutional and legal responsibility to provide the required places for these children?
A survey by the parents' association in Sallins has shown that if current policies continue the following numbers of children will be without school places in future, as follows: 76 children in 2003, 155 in 2004, 231 in 2005, and 239 in 2006. Where will these children go to school? They have a right to attend school and the Minister has a duty to provide sufficient places for them. I demand that provision now be made for three prefabricated classrooms for Sallins national school, to be in place by September 2003 to cater for the children who are currently waiting. I also demand that construction of the required seven new classrooms at Sallins national school should be allowed to go for tender forthwith. Fianna Fáil representatives in that area should live up to their pre-election undertakings.
The Government should not claim that it does not have the money. It is a matter of priorities, of deciding what is most important. I pose the following question to the Minister for Education and Science and the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, who is a local representative for the area: which is most important, a set of new Government private jets costing €100 million, the Bertie bowl which has so far cost €300 million, a savings scheme for those who do not need it, costing €500 million per year, or the provision of basic educational facilities for our children? I would answer, if the Minister will not do so, that our children must come first so a properly equipped school must be provided in Sallins. I demand it and I will settle for no less.