Well, then, the capital programme as a whole — of course industrial development would constitute a substantial part of that — was not producing a commensurate increase in charges. This is quite logical in the industrial field. It is no longer a question of a few cheap sewing machines and lasts, as there used to be, say, in a shoe factory. We are now in a position in which very sophisticated equipment must be bought for most industries in which we have made great progress in the last ten years, particularly in the chemical and electronics branch.
Therefore, I do not see why we should be applying criteria to a modern type of industry like that, criteria which obtained when we were dealing with labour-intensive industries in our industrial development in the past. Put simply, the outgoing Government decided that, in view of the international recession, it was necessary to have a substantial capital programme, to have substantial capital expenditure so that we could not spend our way out of the recession but rather emerge with the least possible damage to our economy. I do not think we should apologise to anybody for that because it means that our philosophy was to put people before book-keeping. I know that one must keep an eye on expenditure and on inputs but if it comes to making a decision as between people and tidy, neatly balanced books, then the Government who come down on the side of people are the Government who in the end will command the respect of the community.
I remember attending a meeting in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire at a time when savage financial remedies were being applied to our economy by a predecessor of Deputy Bruton. Coming from a part of the country which was bled by emigration from the middle of the last century I could not but have a feeling of helplessness as I saw the queues collecting and shuffling forward to the mail boat. In saying this I am not being sentimental. Thanks to increased sophistication and better education, we have moved into a position where people expect development here and expect to live in this country enjoying a decent standard of living. I know that our whole strategy has received some very sarcastic criticism from the Minister for Finance but in the end it will be seen that we followed the right strategy. From straws in the wind, I think that the Minister for Finance and his colleagues are coming to the conclusion that some of their original schemes cannot be put into effect.
The Minister for Education believes that if you tell something which is at variance with the facts often enough some one will believe it. He mentioned that he had made provision for 300 extra teachers in the 1981-82 academic year. Every year during the period of office of the Fianna Fáil Government we had extra teachers to improve the teacher-pupil ration and to provide remedial teachers. This was the first point in our programme for the general election of 1977 and we saw to it that we recruited enough teachers, trained here or in Britain or brought back into the teaching force, to have 300 extra teachers when all those who retired or decided to give up teaching had been replaced.
A matter which has been the subject of questions in this House is expenditure on primary education. Both the Fine Gael and Labour election documents indicated that they regarded this area as very important and social scientists had been saying for some time that if any extra money were to be allocated it should be to the primary sector. From a reply I have received from the Minister for Finance, I find that as of November this year £17,324,000 was spent on primary school building. If the Minister for Finance looks in the Book of Estimates he will see that £30 million was allocated by the previous Government for primary school building. This was a very substantial budget allocation which was seen to be needed for the provision of new schools in developing urban areas, to replace 19th century schools in various parts of the country and for the repair and extension of existing schools. In many of the former cases we built the schools ahead of actual requirements and I opened a number of schools on the outskirts of Dublin city which had 16 classrooms but only enough pupils to fill three. We were dealing with the situation before a crisis developed.
We knew in January 1981 that this budget would require very careful monitoring if we were to achieve what we set out to do and I asked my officers to put forward principles which would enable us to get the maximum benefit from this expenditure and to see that there would not be any unnecessary delay. The first principle was the avoidance of all possible administrative delay. There is a problem there because both the Department of Education and the Department of Finance have an input to primary school building. I requested that pressure be brought on the Office of Public Works to handle cases faster and to communicate a sense of urgency to architects employed not by the OPW but by school managers. I also asked them to find a way of expediting cases at an early stage of planning. At that time there were 52 cases in the hands of the OPW. Working drawings were in course of preparation for 24 of those and sketch plans for 28. Today in the House the Minister for Education pretended that at that time we were somehow or other slowing the process but I do not think he has very much credibility because the man would say anything that came into his head. I am simply indicating the steps we took to utilise fully the £30 million allocated for primary school building.
It was also suggested in January this year that the assistant secretary in the Department should handle tenders and supply notes to me on each case. I would have already approved the invitation of these tenders and it was arranged that the list of approved tenders would come to me without delay. Approval of projects at working drawing stage was also to be speeded up and it was decided to ask the OPW to keep an eye on costs of small projects so that there would be no unnecessary delay.
We had planned to spend the £30 million this year and we were asking the OPW to investigate the possibility of placing the completion of the work with external agencies if necessary in order to complete our programme. I enlarge on that slightly because the Minister had the effrontery to come into the House today and to say at the end of 1980 my Department were far from interested in the provision of primary schools but were slowing things down. The figures of expenditure for November were £1.9 million, for October £1.9 million, September £1.6 million and August, which is not a good month for building, £1.04 million. I am interested to know how the Minister will spend approximately £13 million in the month of December. He did not address himself to this at all. He simply started blaming his predecessor who had, with a sense of urgency, set about the programme of primary school building for 1981 last January — the right time to start.
I do not know about the leaked document. I do not know what status it has and consequently the best thing for me to do is to ignore it. If I am to believe the figures that will be made available to the Minister for Education for capital purposes, they will fall very far short, when 23.6 per cent inflation is taken into account, of the amount allocated for building purposes over all the range of services for 1981. Perhaps the most scandalous, the most shameful act of the Minister for Education was to accept the proposal to forbid the primary schools to children at four years of age. It was cleverly done in the sense that the new regulations did not come into effect until 1 October so that the children who were brought to the schools at the beginning of the academic year in September were not affected and the full effect of what was done would not be apparent to their parents and to the nation as a whole.
In fact, at the Government table the Minister has let down the primary school sector. He has weakened the foundations of the whole educational edifice by his act. Of course, the political consideration, the pay-off for the votes of two Independents, was to promise the provision of pre-school education. In fact, it was "Minister" Kemmy and "Minister" Browne who announced the expenditure of £1 million on pre-schools, not the Minister for Education, the Minister for Finance, the spokesman for the Government, and not even the person who gave out the leaked document to The Irish Times. Deputy Kemmy and Deputy Browne mentioned this.
The people who are interested in pre-school education reckon that it will take £4.5 million to provide the service for the four year olds which had been provided already in buildings built under supervision and with teachers who were trained professionally and trained with a view to teaching the first two-year module in primary schools. I believe the Government will find that this was a false economy, that it was educationally harmful, socially harmful and that it will damage, in particular, the children from what are called the disadvantaged areas. I would like to mention here that most of the talk is about disadvantaged areas in urban Ireland. They exist. In any instance I was asked, when Minister for Education, to allow teachers to remain in those schools because of the particular problems in them — I was asked this by many Deputies — I did so, fully conscious that the lessons from the Van Leer research indicated that this would benefit the children in those areas.
We have had that debate in the House. The points were made that where the area was disadvantaged the extra stimulus is needed early on. The research showed that the response to that stimulus was good: it improved the awareness and improved the quality of the education for the children involved. There are also areas of disadvantage in rural Ireland. If the transport system is damaged, as it will be, unless the rules are changed by 24/81, then there will be a need for pre-schools in rural Ireland. I do not have to tell the House how difficult that will be. I have not been able to get out of the Minister for Education or out of anybody else any straight statement whether such schools will be provided for rural Ireland and if they will be provided with school transport. If the schools are provided and school transport is not available, then they are no good and the system will not work.
Reference was made in the House to the problems of parents when both have to go out to work. It was generally agreed that there were more of these for one reason or another, whether it was ideological — most of the people who can afford ideology will be able to look after themselves economically — whether it was of necessity or because of deliberate Government action in increasing the cost of living by 5.6 per cent in the budget of last July, the withdrawal of subsidies to mortagages or the general increase in the cost of living since the Coalition Government took over.
I mentioned in some detail the Vote for capital expenditure on primary education. Will the Minister for Finance tell me what is the position with regard to the overall capital allocation for 1981 in all the Votes? I have a reply from the Minster for Finance which indicates that, when the Fianna Fáil Government left office on 30 June last, of the £79.3 million allocated for capital purposes £35,267,140 had been spent. Since then only about £27 million has been spent and the total spent at the end of November is £62,592,190. I would like to know from the Minister for Finance, because the Office of Public Works covers part of this expenditure, if in fact there is a saving, and was it by his direction, in the capital budget.
I would like to refer to some of my pet projects, which I hope to see sustained. The Minister decided to continue my scheme for the provision of micro-computers for second level schools. He will provide in his budget figures money for summer courses in 1982 to enable teachers to get the best use of these micro-computers, which were provided in accordance with the decision made by me as Minister and with the backing of the Government.
There is a natural tendency for a Minister who takes over in the middle of the year to try to arrogate to himself all the credit for schemes already under way. I am not in the childish games of claiming credit, but I think I have a right to set myself up as a monitor of the progress to be made in this area. The Minister for Finance should look kindly on the Minister for Education when he comes looking for micro-computers for schools, seeing to it that the teachers are trained to use them and that they will be able to teach computer science at various levels. In primitive societies it is said that fear is the initial reaction to all significant change. If our young people are familiar with computers and their uses early enough, they will have nothing to fear, even though we know socio-economic problems will arise from their use in the future. We have had that at all stages in development since the Industrial Revolution.
I am a little perturbed about the adult education programme. The House will know I was responsible for a considerable advance in this area by providing 50 adult education organisers throughout the country. Their job was to develop adult education, mainly through the agency of the vocational education committees.
Three of those people had special responsibility for the development of the Arts in Ireland. I am basically suspicious about setting up committees to examine what is needed. I regard that as a ploy. Enough research about the need for adult education in Ireland has been done. We know what has to be done and we are calling for action now. The Minister set up a commission under the chairmanship of Mr. Ivor Kenny, a very competent man, but I have the suspicion that the Minister is long-fingering adult education.
I would like to mention the project for distance learning. I had been in consultation with the National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin, RTE and the Open University in Northern Ireland to develop a foundation course in computer science to be followed, using the foundation course as a qualification, by a properly certified two-year course, ending in the award of a national certificate by the National Council for Educational Awards. If it is a question of finance — and it is not a large expenditure — I urge the Minister for Finance to look kindly on proposals from the Minister for Education in this regard.
The development of regional technical colleges was also a favourite project of mine. Each one had been extended while I was Minister for Education. I had made some purchases for the development of Kevin Street before I left office and had finally made a deal for Carriglea Park in order to provide a regional technical college on the east side of the city. Tallaght, Blanchardstown and an area north of the river were on the stocks and negotiations were going on. I trust the money will be available for this development, too.
The School of Engineering at UCD also took up a great deal of time. We seldom pause to realise that our universities produce technologists, unlike some continental universities where there are specific technological universities and some old universities do not allow technologists inside their doors. That is their loss. Our universities have been supplying technologists and the School of Engineering at UCD will be an engineering showpiece in western Europe. I am convinced that no Minister for Finance would neglect funding this. I intended to talk about the development of the National Institute for Higher Education and other third level organisations, but my colleagues want to contribute to this debate and I do not want to take up their time.
The Minister for Finance mentioned agriculture. I want to make a plea for what is known as the west — the 12 western counties. We are not given to the béal bocht. We have every right to ask that all those areas should be included under the severely disadvantaged areas scheme for the benefit of EEC grants. We know farm development schemes have been cut, the special western package negotiated by Deputy MacSharry when he was Minister for Agriculture has been slowed down since the change of Government and, for the purpose of reckoning grants, there has been a change in the counting of sheep and cattle to the disadvantage people in that area.
We know the disadvantages from which we suffer. We have a poorish soil which needs warming with lime and stimulation by artificial fertiliser. We believe we have a very strong case for being included in the severely disadvantaged areas. So far as the Minister for Finance is responsible, to back up what will be coming from the EEC, I would make a plea to him to push our case in the Council of Ministers as well. I am afraid that some of the people in Government who talk about farming are thinking of points further east where the land is better and the farms are larger. It is more difficult to see the smaller farms and the land of poorer quality.
There is much more I would like to say on the Appropriation Bill but several other people wish to speak.