The Archdeacon of Glendalough, the Ven Edgar Swann, told the Church of Ireland General Synod yesterday that drip-feeding decisions on education projects during election campaigns was "no way to run a school system".
In a debate on education he said: "Too often there is a sense that building projects get a go-ahead because of political expediency. We are all aware, during the lead-up to the election, of the charge that projects have deliberately been put on hold for some considerable time in order to be drip-fed to communities during electioneering as a deliberate election bribe."
Funding for schools should be "planned on a multi-annual basis and be sufficient to upgrade all schools within the decade", he said.
In modern Ireland there could be no place for sub-standard school buildings, he said, adding that "our children are a precious resource and deserve better, and so do our dedicated teaching staff".
He also expressed the hope that the Government would take more seriously in future "the genuine feeling of being marginalised and undervalued which has caused so much of the discontent and bad labour relations [among teachers] in the past year".
The principal of the Church of Ireland Theological College in Dublin, Canon Adrian Empey, spoke forcefully to the synod about "scurrilous attacks" on the college by letter-writers to the Church of Ireland Gazette.
Hitler believed that if you repeated a big lie often enough people would believe it, he said. "To hear the college pilloried like that is just not good enough." There was no basis for the attacks. They were "unfounded and contemptible", and anybody who doubted the integrity of the college was welcome to call there, to hear lectures and to have a direct experience of the place.