Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I raise an issue relating to ancillary grants for schools. This affects many schools in my area. Last week, I met the principal and treasurer of St. Mary's Boys National School in Booterstown. It is by any measure a fantastic local parish school. It provides a service for the community and does so in a way that contributes much to provide for special educational needs and children from the IPAS centre in Blackrock. It does a good job and does it well.

It gets an ancillary grant, as the Minister of State will be aware, as many schools do. That grant was used in the past to pay secretaries and caretakers. Since the secretaries, for example, were put onto the payroll of the Department, a decision has been made that schools do not need the same ancillary grant. A difficulty arises here. I raise this issue specifically in relation to St. Mary's Boys National School but it also applies in other schools. The difficulty is that the Department has made a calculation which assumes that those school secretaries were paid all year round, 12 months per year when, in fact, very often they were part-time workers who were not paid in July and August. The calculation takes into account money that was available to the school and was used to pay for important things, including electricity, insurance, heating and lighting. The Department decided to cut that out. St. Mary's Boys National School reckons it is at a loss of between €4,000 and €6,000 on the basis it would not have been paying those people in July and August.

The Department may well say, "Tough", but I do not think that is the right answer. I welcome the resolution of the issue with the caretakers and secretaries. I supported them totally in their call to be put onto the payroll of the Department and to have the same terms and conditions in respect of pensions, sick leave and all the other employment benefits that teachers in schools have. They are entitled to those and I hope the workings of the WRC will result in a positive outcome in that regard. You cannot have a desire to solve that problem and also expect the schools and the communities they serve to be less well-off as a result.

The Department needs to take account of the fact that the cutting of the ancillary grants is an unfair measure that disadvantages schools, which are doing a good job for communities. They are doing their level best on pretty tight budgets.

St. Mary's Boys National School serves 170-odd boys. Let us do something that helps them. Instead of saying we are cutting out that grant, let us acknowledge the reality of what was happening and the way in which secretaries were paid. That should also be reflected in the reality of the way in which the ancillary grant is paid.

I welcome the increase in the capitation grant from €224 to €270 per child enrolled. That is very welcome. Let us be clear, however, that it is not enough. Schools need that money and that increase because of the increase in all the costs that come with running a school. Let us not penalise them by hitting the ancillary grant. I ask the Minister of State in the first instance to acknowledge the fact that this calculation by the Department is perverse, incorrect and unfairly reflects the needs of the schools. It is something that the Department can address by changing the calculation and acknowledging that schools did not pay people 12 months per year and there were two months during the summer when school secretaries were not paid out of those ancillary grants, and, therefore, to remove them is both arbitrary and unfair. I hope the Minister of State can acknowledge that and we can make some progress towards fixing the problem.

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