Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State, to a point. An awful lot in that response is not relevant to this particular school. What made my blood boil, to be perfectly honest, was when the Minister of State said, "Schools should be in no way disadvantaged by this [meaning the changes in respect of the secretaries' payment] as the grant is reduced only by the amount they previously paid to their secretaries." He spoke about a review in respect of this particular school in which the Department decided that the amount paid to the secretaries was greater than the level of the grant that was given, and, therefore, the grant is being reduced to nil. The first thing I said when introducing this Topical Issue was that that was not the case. This school is being impacted by these changes. It was paying less to the secretaries than the ancillary grant. Therefore, it had money left over that it used to pay for important goods and services in the school. It is now left without that money because the Department has decided the school was paying the secretaries all year round when, in fact, it was not. This is not some kind of smoke and mirrors. The school is not trying to hide anything. It published properly audited accounts. I met Mr. Noel Scully, the principal, who is doing an excellent job, and Mr. Conor Gahan, the treasurer.

They have put together accounts that show this very clearly, so whatever review the Department has carried out is incorrect because it has come to a conclusion that leaves the school worse off. All the policies in the world can state that this should not impact on the school's financial position, but it has impacted on the school's financial position. St. Mary's Boys National School is between €4,000 and €6,000 less well off every year because of this change. The bean counter within the Department who has done this has made a mistake or has wilfully ignored the facts of the matter. Will the Minister of State please commit to me that the Department will examine this again, review it and be honest about the matter in terms of looking at what the actual end costs for St. Mary's Boys School are? If the Department can establish that the school has been left less well off than it was before this review - I am confident that it will be able to do so - I ask it to reinstate the ancillary grant in order that it can pay for what it needs to pay for.

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