This is the Taoiseach's last day in this House in that role and I will have to pay tribute to him in a few minutes. I am sure he did not expect that on his last day as Taoiseach, the front page of a national newspaper would carry the story of a primary school that is forced to hold classes in a converted toilet. This is not the kind of situation our children should face in 2008 as education is fundamental to the kind of society and country we wish to become.

Two years ago the Minister for happiness wrote to the school in question and said work would start with immediate effect. Deputies Allen and Stanton received four derisory four word replies from the Department of Education and Science. The school raised €50,000 and made the site available, yet is on the front page of today's Irish Examiner holding classes in a converted toilet. That this should happen in 2008 is a disgrace. The Minister for happiness, happy children, happy parents and happy teachers, wrote two years ago saying building would begin with immediate effect, just before the general election.

Deputy Kenny is not happy.

Deputy Brady was not happy before this either.

Ten years ago action was promised and two years ago it was promised with immediate effect. This is a commentary on our public services. The Minister of State may smile all he likes but the fact remains that 300 people per day lie on hospital trolleys, wards are being closed in Tallaght and at James Connolly Hospital and services are being stripped away in Monaghan and Navan and not being replaced. I raised a question on Leopardstown Park Hospital only two or three weeks ago but the Taoiseach did not get back to me yet. Yesterday Deputy Shatter pointed out that respite care beds will be withdrawn from the hospital from May, June and July and this is another disgraceful situation. I was handed a letter from a school in Wicklow today.

Can Deputy Kenny ask his question?

I will ask it now. That school in Wicklow has postponed referrals of children between 16 and 18 years of age with special needs because there are 500 on the waiting list.

The Taoiseach recently said that his greatest regret from his time in office was the failure to build the national sports campus. I ask the Taoiseach, on this special morning, to revise that assessment and admit that his greatest regret from times of economic boom is his failure to use his authority to develop a health system that provides proper care and attention for young, old and middle-aged patients and an education system that provides a platform, suitable for 2008, that would allow our children to grow in confidence and compete in the big challenges they face in the years ahead. They should not, in 2008, have to attend classes in a converted toilet, as in Glenville national school.

When I took over as Taoiseach ten projects per year were dealt with under the schools building programme, on average, and that was the contribution to capital projects. We now spend €4.5 billion under the national development plan investing in school buildings, refurbishing existing schools and providing new ones in developing areas. We have done this every year for the past seven or eight years and, between roofs, windows and so on, 1,500 projects are being undertaken.

I do not know why the school mentioned did not partake in any of the summer works projects or get a position on the capital programme because I do not know every one of the 4,500 school projects. I do know the investment we are putting in and I know the range of projects, which includes the refurbishment of buildings and the construction of new buildings. Thousands of minor works have been completed in schools in recent years, as have many large projects. Construction work this year, when completed, is expected to provide permanent accommodation for 20,000 pupils. When I took over as Taoiseach that figure stood at a few hundred pupils per year.

Improved forward planning has been put in place and there is greater co-operation between the Department of Education and Science and local authorities, which can be seen in the publication of area development plans. In the primary sector we have increased funding to disadvantaged areas significantly and have invested €800 million and thousands of teaching posts in tackling disadvantage at all levels. This includes pre-school education, school meals, books, smaller classes, home-school links, special literacy and numeracy programmes, homework clubs and third level access programmes, practically none of which existed a decade ago. My colleagues and I are proud of this.

And everything is grand.

Regarding Leopardstown Park Hospital, there is capital funding in this area and I have raised the issue that the Deputy brought up. This is not the only matter on the list admittedly — there are a number hospitals in the programme — but a few hundred million euro per year is being put into the development of such hospitals.

The Deputy mentioned waiting lists and other areas. The other day I reviewed the enormous increase in throughput of outpatients and inpatients in the accident and emergency departments in our hospitals. There are hundreds of thousands more visits than there were three years ago and this is linked to an increase in population.

Not too many people are going into the accident and emergency department in Cork because it is closed.

There is a new hospital in Cork with a new accident and emergency department. The Deputy should try to assist in dealing with staffing levels there because the matter would be simplified if excessively high staff levels were not sought.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The Minister for happiness has abandoned the summer works scheme.

Deputy Kenny, her title is the Minister for Education and Science.

It is the same person.

In thousands of cases arrangements have been made for building works to go ahead but they have not proceeded. Deputy Hayes exposed the complete abdication of responsibility for special needs and autism by the Minister for Education and Science. The other day Deputy Quinn, in a devastating contribution, showed how the Minister for Education and Science could not answer how many prefabricated school buildings there are in 2008. Children having to go to school in converted toilets is not good enough.

The Minister for Health and Children, sitting beside the Taoiseach, is presiding over an absolute crisis in the health service which gets worse day by day. Maybe the Taoiseach is getting out in time. I do not know the full details of what will happen in the next three months.

In this final bout of Leaders' Questions with the Taoiseach, maybe he has regrets and things he wants to say. When he looks back at the unprecedented economic boom we have had, does he regret setting up the Health Service Executive in the way it was? As a person with empathy and compassion for people, I know the Taoiseach did not want to see how the executive has turned out. The way the executive was set up by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance — who has turned a €4 billion Exchequer surplus into a €6 billion deficit — and the Minister for Health and Children, it was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of health reform and service delivery. Does the Taoiseach regret the manner in which it was set up? I know he has commented on other matters that, from his point of view, were not appropriate. Does he believe appointing a chief executive, a team and then amalgamating all the health boards was the way to go about this? Had he an opportunity, would he change that direction and base it on a different structure in the interest of patient care and safety and service delivery?

Deputy Kenny will recall that some of his predecessors — admittedly not him at the time — and Members from my side pressed for the establishment of a unified health system. When the health strategy went through the House in 2001, there was unanimous agreement that the old health board system set up in the early 1970s under the Health Act was not adequate to deal with the diverse demands of primary care and community health services or to control 53 acute hospitals with 13,000 beds.

The health board system had wide ranges of grades for personnel and different working practices.

Nothing has changed.

It was believed a unified system was the right way to proceed. Incidentally, several other countries in Europe are introducing unified systems of health care.

Deputy Kenny asked if there are difficulties with modernising, integrating and introducing standard practices to an old system that has been there in one form or another since the foundation of the State. It is a mammoth task. Deputy Kenny and all Members must acknowledge the hospital throughput, the capital programme for hospitals and the integration of hospital services.

When I started as Taoiseach, the big issue on Question Time was cardiovascular services with large waiting lists for treatment of up to four years.

The Taoiseach should face reality.

The reality is that people in the past ten years are living four years longer because we have a good health service.

I suppose the Taoiseach is responsible for that.

The fact that we have eliminated the cardiovascular surgery waiting lists——

Tell that to the cancer patients.

We have eliminated the cardiothoracic surgery lists.

Go tell that to their families.

Our survival rates in all cancer treatments are far better than even five years ago. We have built the health services up with 130,000 people working in them. While there are administrative areas we have to deal with, the health services for the Irish people are better than ever.

Go talk to the families of cancer patients.

What has Deputy Kenny done in the past 11 years?

What about Glenville national school?