Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their invaluable contributions. We all acknowledge the significant role of non-teaching staff in schools. I and many of my colleagues have attended public meetings in our constituencies. We are here with the best of interests in progressing this. I welcome the fact that Fórsa will be engaging with the Department in the near future on this. We will continue to support Fórsa in that.

I have a question for the Department officials. I welcome the Minister's announcement that he is relaxing the moratorium to employ additional school secretaries for schools with 700 or more pupils. In respect of the pay structure, are the newly recruited staff to be paid by the Department directly? Is that going to be the new system? In respect of the secretaries, we all acknowledge that it is a gender issue. I do not know what Mr. Pike's views are. As has been alluded to, be it the caretaker or the secretary, there is one in every school so it is harder for them to mobilise throughout the country. It is easier for a staffroom of teachers to mobilise and they have their INTO representative, for example, on the staff. For secretaries who are often working in silos with one in each school, it is harder to engage with the trade union and mobilise. That might be an issue but I know it is something Fórsa can also raise in its engagement with the Department. They were my main questions. For Ms Carton, maybe I did not explain myself. In respect of the community and comprehensive schools, the education and training board, ETB, schools, and the moratorium, my question was how those new posts work in respect of their pay.