Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. The Minister will be aware of the Fórsa campaign to support the school secretaries. There is quite an active campaigner in the Minister's constituency who has been on to the Minister regularly. I know that nobody takes the service for granted but the school secretary really plays an integral role in the running of a school. They are the first point of contact for everybody and if there is any sort of an issue the school secretary is usually the first person to contact the parents, and vice versaif a parent needed to come into the school or if there is an emergency or for any sort of general day-to-day issues with the school. I believe we all agree that the person with whom one deals the most is the school secretary.

School secretaries have a huge workload, which is not limited to the daily tasks. They must also take on the task of dealing with parents and dealing with issues, some of which are very difficult. In certain cases there is a two-tier situation and in some schools there may be two secretaries with different working conditions. Some 10% are on the scheme where they are paid directly by the Department and the remaining 90% are paid through the ancillary grant. Obviously we cannot allow this situation to continue. We really need to recognise the vital role they play. Many schools would not survive without them. One would always know if the school secretary had been out for a few days because things can start to run behind a bit.

It is a very important issue and one that has run on for years. We met campaigners on the issue last week and some of them have been involved in the campaign for ten, 15 or 20 years.

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