Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I apologise for having to leave earlier. I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their presentations. It was not possible for Maria Dunne, who is chair of the school secretaries branch, to address us because of the way in which arrangements were made. I understand that. I do not know if anyone else has brought it up. I would ask that if Ms Dunne wants to send something in to the committee, it could be considered. We all very strongly support the case of the secretaries and caretakers who are paid from the ancillary grant. It is a totally unequal system. Those who are paid directly get all their holiday pay and so on. That case has been very strongly made and I wish to endorse and support it.

On trying to make progress, the current agreement expires at the end of this year and it is very welcome that Ms Carton has clarified that the Department will meet Fórsa to discuss the issues. It surely is an opportunity to set up a system whereby those who are doing the fantastic job that they do in schools will not have to sign on, as Mr. Pike was describing, when they get their school holidays and will not have to worry about a pension and so on. I do not know whether Ms Carton can answer my question but to what extent is the Department going to engage on that very important element of what has been requested? I have a further question for Ms Carton. The estimate in 2015 was that the cost would be €5 million. I presume it is more than that now. Has the Department done any costing in respect of bringing those secretaries and caretakers into the system?

In terms of Fórsa's ask to us, Mr. Pike has spelled it out to some extent, but is there anything he wanted to add? I do not have any specific questions for Ms Lynch, Mr. Fiorentini or Ms White. In his presentation, Mr. Duffy was talking about carrying out an audit and referred to the fact that there would be an extra 100,000 students coming into the post-primary system. Obviously there is going to be demand for more staff. I think the priority is to ensure that the staff who are there are getting their proper pay and conditions, while certainly also needing to ensure that we have adequate staffing for the future. What kind of audit did Mr. Duffy have in mind? What should we be recommending in that regard?