Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy very much for those questions. On the school secretaries, there are more than 2,600 school secretaries on the payroll and 154 of them are individual secretaries employed by more than one school. I am just giving the Deputy that information as it is an interesting dynamic. The Department has been providing a payroll service for these school secretaries since September 2023, as the Deputy knows. On the arrears referred to by the Deputy, for the 2022-2023 and the 2021-2022 school year, my understanding is that they were paid last week, around 23 November. I believe that has been rectified in respect of approximately €8 million. I also acknowledge that the vast majority of school secretaries opted to take up the invitation to become part of the centralised payroll but there are a number of school secretaries who did not, which is absolutely fine.

On the school transport review, I know the Deputy is very invested in this. The next stage for that review is for it to go to pre-Cabinet and then on to the Cabinet. I am also very anxious that we progress that as quickly as possible. We need to find a slot for that to go in there, as we need to work with all of the other constituent parts from a pre-Cabinet and Cabinet point of view, to facilitate that moving as quickly as possible. I am very anxious that we progress it as quickly as we can.

I acknowledge the Deputy's very positive remarks on the school books. This initiative has been received very positively. An investment of some €50 million has been made at primary level and €67 million has been invested at post-primary level. This means that collectively, between primary and post-primary levels, next year we will have more than 770,000 pupils benefiting from the free school books scheme.

On the digital side of that, e-books are covered by the scheme. We were very conscious that we would have to take a first step here and that we were very much stepping into a whole new domain. We started with the textbooks, the e-books. There is only a certain amount we can do.

On the digital technology, significant investment has been made by the Department in this, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Over €200 million was provided for it over two years for payment and so forth. It is a work in progress with regard to the primary school books.

On the inflation side of things, I am, and I believe everybody is, conscious that the whole construction sector environment has been very challenging in recent years and the Department has built in a cost uplift of 21%, relative to the previous year. Costs have increased further since then but increases in our basic building costs have broadly tracked construction inflation in the economy.

In May 2022 a co-operation framework, which the Deputy referred to, was introduced in order to address the impact that exceptional inflation on construction materials and energy was having on public works contracts. To date, 69 claims have been submitted to the Department under the framework. Some 63 have been recommended for payment, costing in excess of €70 million. There are six such claims outstanding and under review. If there are specific issues with regard to individual contractors, which the Deputy may wish to give me afterwards, I will be very happy to follow up on these.

With regard to Carrigaline Community Special School, I want to acknowledge the great progress that has been made, even in the past number of years, in the development of new special schools, particularly the leadership role that has been taken by the schools themselves, by ETBs and others.

The Deputy is correct that the provision of therapy does not fall within our remit. The HSE committed to returning 85 therapy posts to us in 2021 and 136 in 2022. As of now, 104 posts have been returned. I absolutely accept that is not sufficient. We have engaged with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who is doing great work in this area, and with her officials. We are fully engaged with the HSE and the Department of children to drive this on, because it is an inherent and hugely important part of the provision within our special schools. While it falls outside the remit of Department of Education, I assure the Deputy that we are engaging with everybody possible to try to make it a reality as quickly as possible.