MINISTER FOR Education Mary Hanafin defended her department during heated exchanges with Labour spokesman Ruairí Quinn.
"Those who manage my department, the secretary general and the senior management group, are highly efficient, highly committed, dedicated people, who give all their time to managing a budget of €9.3 billion.
"They oversee a system of 4,000 schools, seven universities, up to 20 higher education institutions and look after the interests of individuals from the age of three right through to adulthood."
Earlier, Mr Quinn claimed that the Minister was "either being economic with the truth, to borrow a phrase from a famous trial in the southern hemisphere, or her department is being economic with the truth with her".
It was beyond belief, said Mr Quinn, that after more than three years in the department, she had no overall view of the physical inventory of the primary school infrastructure.
Mr Quinn said the Minister could not give the age and cost of prefabs, nor could she say when permanent accommodation would be put in place. "Is it any wonder her department is rated as the most incompetent and dysfunctional of the primary major departments?
"She does not have a clue what is the school accommodation of the primary pupils. She is a disgrace or, more to the point, her department is a disgrace."
Ms Hanafin said that additional teachers had been appointed and this created the demand for extra temporary accommodation. The children came first and the buildings came second, she added.
