Mr. Clive Byrne:

Some of the points made by Deputies and Senators would apply more in the primary sector than in the post primary sector. In post primary schools we regard it as positive that the boards in the 700 schools are there as resources but they operate in a different way within the different sectors. Regarding the representative quality of the board, whether it is staff, parents or the experts the trustees would put on, in many instances, as Mr. Cottrell said, the boards are benignly supportive but often they do not have the level of expertise that would make it easy for a principal or deputy principal to operate.

I am not sure if members are aware that the rights-based legislation, the Education Act 1998, made the second level school principal one of the most legislated for individuals in society, but without the resources to enable him or her to implement that. The second level school principal is named in the Education Act, the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act, the Education Welfare Act, the Teaching Council Act, the Vocational Education (Amendment) Act, the Ombudsman for Children Act, the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act, the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work Act, the Employment Equality Act, the Equal Status Act, the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act, the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act and the Equality Act 2004.

One would have to be an expert to understand it all. There have been many changes in the level of responsibility of the principal. While I made the point in my submission that many of our colleagues have less than five years experience, in the past to become a principal one did not require a professional qualification and were as likely as not a teacher on 31 August and principal on 1 September. In those circumstances, a whole plethora of events presented.
In regard to the role of the principal and deputy principal within second level education, previously we had, in theory, a generous middle leadership structure in the form of assistant principal and special duties posts. It would not have been unusual in a school of 700 to have up to 16 special duties posts and ten assistant principal posts. Given the economic downturn, this has changed in recent times. What we are saying is that as a first step an assistant principal post, at level agreed within the Department, should be provided. It must be remembered that in schools, while the timetable allowance for an assistant principal is 18 to 22 hours, the difficulty is that this is not recouped to the school in terms of teaching allocations. The schools have to find those hours from within their own resources. The assistant principal post, which had an allowance of €8,000 plus and special duties allowance of almost €4,000, worked in theory. It is often forgotten that the postal responsibility function was introduced in the late 1960s as a resolution to an industrial relations situation in respect of which it was proposed to give a special functions allowance on the basis of seniority, which would not be paid to everybody. This post has developed on an ad hocbasis.
In the past the most viable criteria for appointment to the post of principal and deputy principal was seniority. In this regard, we believe an element of suitability, flexibility and accountability should be factored in. What is often not realised by those outside the education sector is that in a school the only person who can have a professional conversation with a teacher is the principal. Nobody else has the authority or autonomy to speak to a teacher in regard to the manner in which he or she is doing their job. It is only within the past number of years that this was rectified by section 24(3) of the education Act.
A number of other points were raised by Deputies and Senators, which my colleague Ms Nihill will respond to.