Mr. Martin Hanevy:

-----and an advance was made in that regard but then the downturn came and we were cutting capitation grants, so the model that had enabled the gap to be closed disappeared unless one was to reduce the budgets of the ETBs to give to others, which the Minister decided not to do. There are differences between the sectors. The State carries the insurance costs of the community and comprehensive schools but, as members heard earlier, it is a charge in the case of the ETBs. As this still is a live issue, as the Secretary General has stated, there is a first step we have agreed with the voluntary secondary schools that must be taken in regard to that pay disparity piece. However, in looking at this, I have some reservations about the original analysis on whether it properly divorced out the school piece of the ETBs' business from their adult education and whatever else and that it may have factored in costs, so there is a piece there. The way in which the moratorium applied probably has been more severe on the ETBs and the community and comprehensive schools in respect of their caretakers and secretaries because they were in posts, whereas the voluntary secondary schools continued to have their grant for that.