Mr. Paul Rowe:

I was asked about consultation. Educate Together operates national schools, voluntary secondary schools, community schools and community colleges, so we have a very good viewpoint with which to address this. With regard to what consultation we carried out, we consulted with all the programme managers of Educate Together. They are responsible for the management of all of those schools.

I wish to respond to the accusation that there is a fear of an ombudsman. In concert with the other representatives here, what we are really concerned about is a duplication of roles and an increasing burden on boards of management in a way that would be counterproductive. In terms of the money, we all should reflect a certain indignation about this. As regards a sum of €800,000, I am under pressure to open 25 new Educate Together schools. I could open nine of them with that. This is not a small sum, so it should not be just tossed around. I note that in the previous hearing there was a reference to spending €1 million or €2 million of the education budget on this role. Almost all of us here were volunteers originally. None of us is working on a high salary. We are here because we are dedicated to education and we are all acutely aware of the enormous pressure schools have been under in financial matters. The capitation grant has been cut, our core grants have been cut and all our additional resourcing has been cut. For example, in our role as a signature for the Garda vetting process we are still operating on half the grant we need for that role. It is important that we represent that.

The argument we would put forward is, as Breda Corr has pointed out, that the types of things an ombudsman would be dealing with would frequently have an inter-sectionality between education, social services and the security services. If there is an effective role of ombudsman it should be the Ombudsman for Children addressing those issues. A majority of the most difficult complaints we have to deal with are usually because our system has put parents of children with special needs in such a situation that they have only been able to get resources for their children as a result of having to take a combative, confrontational role in order to get those resources. That is a shameful reflection on the way in which the system operates.

I strongly disagree with the view that the ETBs, which we work with and respect, are somehow way ahead of all the other providers in terms of transparency. We are all legally responsible for carrying out proper transparent services. They are statutory obligations. We all agree that there is a need to review the current complaints process and that a new, revised complaints process with an appeal mechanism is needed. We are very comfortable with that, but it does not require another raft of State ombudsman services.

Deputy Martin asked-----