Fr. Paul Connell:

I will address a number of the points raised. First, I very much regret the comment that our presentation was somehow sarcastic. That would never have been our intention. We respect the work of this committee and we all have the same goal in view, which is to provide the best education for our pupils while keeping the costs as low as possible for everybody. That is our drive. The last statement in our submission was that recommendations should be grounded in the real world. One of the four main points as identified by Deputy Ó Ríordáin was a recommendation for the complete prohibition of voluntary contributions. While we agree with that statement absolutely, and we hope it will come to pass eventually, in the real world, as the Deputy said himself, schools cannot survive without the voluntary contributions of the parents of our students.

Deputy McConalogue asked what use is made of the voluntary contributions. Our funding from parents comes from two elements: fundraising, and the actual voluntary contribution that we seek from parents after their children have been enrolled in our school, not as a condition of enrolment. That distinction is very important to us. It is completely voluntary. To put it in perspective, yesterday I paid €19,000 for oil for my school. Last year oil cost us €32,000 for the school year. I would not have been able to pay that oil bill if I did not have the voluntary contributions from the parents of the students in my school. That is reality I live with. I report to a board of management, which is responsible for the finances of the school and must stay within budget. There are no bailouts. We must stay within certain parameters. If we cannot get the money from the Department, we have to raise it from the parents. There is no other way of doing it. That is the reality.

On the issue of patronage, the JMB represents the boards of management of our schools and not the patrons. That is a misunderstanding. The JMB does not represent the patrons and we are not here on their behalf.

We are here on behalf of the boards of management of voluntary secondary schools across the country. The boards of management make the decisions. That function is delegated to them by the patrons in each of our schools. Those boards are representative of the community and of parents. They make the decisions about the running of the school in conjunction with the parents.

I wish to respond to Deputy McConalogue's question. I am the principal of St. Finian's College in Mullingar, which was a boarding school until 2002. We phased out the boarding element of our activities and became a co-educational school. We did not have a uniform up to that point. When we polled the incoming parents, 98% of them voted in favour of having a uniform. That has been the position ever since. We regularly consult the parents in each of our schools with regard to decisions being taken in the school. While many of our parents' associations have started to help us to fund our schools, the role of the parents' council is entirely different from that of a fundraising body. Rather than acting as a fundraising body, the parents' council assists the school in teaching, learning and communicating with parents. It is vitally important to us to keep that communication open. While fundraising is necessary, it does not necessarily have to be done by the parents' council, and often is not.

I was also asked about competition between schools. Again, I would like to ground this in the real world. During the Celtic tiger era, when things were very good in this country, education was not funded to the extent that it should have been. Matters have got worse in recent years, since the budgetary crisis started. All of our classes in all of our schools are at maximum sizes. The pupil-teacher ratio continued to get worse until this year when, happily, it was not touched. We welcome the decision not to interfere with the pupil-teacher ratio in last month's budget. It is important to realise that many things have been happening in schools. For example, guidance counsellors have been taken out. If there is pressure on schools to have certain numbers - that may be an issue in some schools - I suggest that funding is an issue in that context. We have small schools that are finding it hard to survive. They do not know where they will get the money to do things by the middle of the year. That is a very bad situation to be in. I would like to make the point, in the context of what has been said about crested jumpers and iPads, that the goal of schools is to provide the best education possible for our children. That is what we try to do. We continuously have to deal with curriculum reform and change things for the better. That is what the Department is doing. We all try to do it together.