Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up on two points raised by Deputy Martin, one concerning equal pay for equal work. There is growing frustration among some of the cohorts who have not seen equalisation happen. The Minister will be aware of that. I hope that can be dealt with as early as possible. There was a Topical Issue debate on this yesterday but I was not in a position to participate in it. Will the Minister give us an update on the discussions with Fórsa and the pay of school secretaries? Pay varies radically from school to school, depending on whether the arrangement is based on the ancillary grant or direct employment.

Some of them are on very low pay and their employment conditions are poor. That issue needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. What is the position of the Minister and the Department in that regard? Is he personally involved in negotiations or are his officials involved in them?

On further education, the number of apprentices and trainees has doubled from 6,200 or thereabouts to approximately 12,000 in recent years, which is welcome. I would like the figure to increase further. We need to improve the quality of our apprenticeships. The combined allocation for the national training fund and Solas has only increased by 9% even though the number of apprentices has doubled. Clearly, the figures do not match up.

I wish to flag that there are significant issues with school transport. Every Deputy deals with them. As I represent an urban constituency where fewer people rely upon the service, I may deal with fewer such issues than certain other Deputies. However, I am aware from colleagues, as well as cases referred to me, that there are significant issues in this area. People who were previously eligible for school transport are now deemed ineligible. Often, parents of children with special needs apply to many schools in order to try to get their children child into appropriate units. They may fail to get places in several of those schools, including specials schools. When parents get a place for their child, they may be unable to access the school transport scheme because the child will not be travelling to the school nearest to his or her home and may pass two or three schools at which his or her needs would be met. The refusal to grant access to the scheme disregards the fact that the child was not admitted to the schools in question. That is a significant issue. In general, the scheme requires significant investment and possibly an overhaul in order to increase its scope and the number of people who can access it. Many people would like to be able to access it.

School traffic is a big issue in urban and rural areas. The more children we can take out of the queues of cars outside schools and onto buses, the better. That would be of benefit in terms of traffic, climate change and many other areas.

Additional funding for the State Examinations Commission would be welcome. There were issues in respect of the junior certificate and the additional examinations this year. I wish to flag the campaign backed by the Irish Second-Level Students Union urging greater compassion for children or people sitting the leaving certificate who are ill and who encounter difficulties in deferring their exams. I ask the Minister to take that on board.

I tabled several parliamentary questions relating to DEIS during the year. I have regularly raised with the Minister the need for schools to be given the opportunity to apply for DEIS band 2 and for the ratio to come down for DEIS band 1. The INTO held a protest last week on the latter issue. An opportunity was missed with DEIS band 2. Many schools that would not qualify for DEIS band 1 were not given the opportunity to be considered for DEIS band 2, which was a disappointing failure. There are significant advantages to DEIS band 2 - which is less expensive than DEIS band 1 - in terms of access to the school completion programme and home-school community liaison teachers who are of great benefit. Principals have told me that they are dealing with complicated cases but want to get on with running their school. People are not aware how difficult it is to deal with such cases. If a school has a home-school liaison teacher, much of that work is taken off the desk of the principal. Does the Minister plan to reintroduce DEIS band 2? Some of the answers to the parliamentary questions I tabled stated that he is looking at the area of educational disadvantage generally and that there might be some new approach. Is there any update in that regard? Although only a minority of the children in certain schools may be disadvantaged, the schools still require access to home-school liaison or school completion services. Perhaps a clustering system whereby several schools could avail of the services could be considered. We have not heard much on the issue recently. The general answer is that the Department is examining it. This is very important and it could make a significant difference.