Page 1758 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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MR BARR: If I was going to pursue that argument to its logical conclusion, Mr Mulcahy, I would turn around and talk to Mrs Dunne about it. These are the conflicts that are always there. It is one thing for people to disagree with policy; that is fine. In a robust democracy, you would expect that, if government puts forward a proposal and goes out to consult on a proposal, people are free and able to disagree. No-one could argue that there was not extensive scrutiny of this process—through this Assembly, through the various committees of this Assembly, through 700 public meetings, through 1,600 pieces of correspondence and through the formal submission process. I have been questioned on these proposals for more than 20 hours in estimate committee hearings and annual report hearings over the last 12 months.
To suggest that there is no openness and no accountability here is a ridiculous assertion. Not even Mrs Dunne, in one of her greater moments of hyperbole, would go so far as to say that there has been no response from government in regard to these issues. I note that she did raise in her speech—and acknowledge—the fact that, when further information was requested, the government complied and provided that further information.
Mrs Dunne: Sometimes.
MR BARR: You contest whether some of the further information was provided. In response, particularly in relation to the issue you raised around audits of school capacity, I would say that subsequent audits were done. There may not have been agreement with school communities around a number of audits, but the audits were done again and the original finding was reinforced. That meant that there was not a change to the publicised school capacity. Those audits were done.
From time to time there was disagreement with school communities over what constituted a classroom. In some of our schools, particularly given some of the open-plan philosophies that were at play when they were built in the 1960s and 1970s, there were some areas where people would contest whether something was a teaching space or not. There were some areas where, I acknowledge, there was disagreement. But that is not to say that there was not a reappraisal. Whenever anyone sought a reappraisal of the capacity of a school, it was done.
The point I would make overall in response to those specific allegations is that the only time that schools were contesting their capacity—this is certainly the case now—and contesting those figures with the department was when they wanted to take on additional enrolments. People were arguing all through last year that we were overstating the capacity. Our public education system, in its heyday, had schools that accommodated 700 students. Even accounting for computer labs and the fact that kids are a little bit bigger in 2007 than they were in 1967, to say that a school with 63 enrolments or 28 enrolments that used to have 700 was somehow operating anywhere near capacity is another ridiculous proposition.
All of those arguments were had. All of those arguments were had publicly. Mrs Dunne participated. For the first three or four public meetings, she went along and asked questions, thereby depriving the community of time to ask me questions. That practice ended after three meetings, because the community howled her down and said, “You have ample opportunity elsewhere to ask questions.”
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