Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)

I am taking this matter on the behalf of the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee. I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to outline to the House the position in respect of St Mary’s Boys National School, Blackrock, County Dublin. The Department is committed to offering all available and appropriate supports to schools. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, budget 2026 includes €39 million towards increased capitation funding for primary, post-primary and special schools to provide additional financial support towards their running costs. This will see an increase in the standard capitation rates paid to schools of €50 per pupil for primary schools, from €224 to €274, and of €20 per pupil for post-primary schools, from €386 to €406. Over the past three budgets there has been in an increase of 49.7% in the level of capitation rates paid to primary schools.

The ancillary services grant is payable to recognised primary schools and special schools in the free education system. The grant is intended to cater for the cost of employing secretaries and caretaking staff. It is up to the boards of management to allocate this funding as per their priorities. As per Circular 40/09, the capitation grant provided for general running costs and the ancillary services grant provided for secretarial and caretaking services may be regarded as a common grant from which the board of management can allocate according to its own priorities.

After Fórsa accepted the Workplace Relations Commission agreement about salaries and leave for grant-funded school secretaries, the secretaries who accepted the agreement were added to the Department of education's payroll from September 2023. Because of this, the ancillary-related grant funding has been updated. Schools are no longer paying these salaries directly.

Since the 2023-2024 school year, schools have been paid the usual ancillary grant amount minus the amount that schools previously paid to grant-funded secretaries prior to their acceptance of the new terms and conditions. Schools provided the Department with these details and this information is now being used to reduce the ancillary-related grant funding. Schools should be in no way disadvantaged by this as the grant is reduced only by the amount they previously paid to their secretaries.

To date we have issued correspondence to schools with details of the arrangements for September to December 2023, January to August 2024, September to December 2024 and January to August 2025.

In some situations, the salaries of ancillary staff in a particular school may have been higher than the ancillary grant due to the school and the school may have funded this difference via other revenue streams. In situations where the salary that a school was paying their secretary was higher than the ancillary grant due to the school prior to them being added to the Department of education’s payroll, the ancillary grant is reduced to nil. This should not impact the school's financial position.

For the specific school mentioned, the ancillary grant has now been reduced to nil as the salary the school was previously paying their secretaries, prior to their moving to the Department's payroll, is now higher than the ancillary grant available to the school prior to reductions being applied. A full review of the grant was completed by the Department in September 2025 and an update was provided to the school on the breakdown of the grant. The rate of ancillary services grant has not decreased and continues to be paid based on the relevant enrolments in the school multiplied by the rates set out in Circular 17/21.

Work is ongoing to identify a method of standardising the reduction to the ancillary-related grants for the longer term where school secretaries are being paid on the Department's payroll. The House should note that the reductions may change when a permanent model for ancillary-related grant reductions has been finalised.

The financial support services unit, funded by the Department, is an important source of advice and support to schools on financial matters, including budgeting and cash flow management. Contact can be found on its website.

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