Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)

I feel the Deputy's frustration. I will repeat what is contained in the reply. For the specific school mentioned the ancillary grant has now been reduced to nil because the salary the school was previously paying its secretaries before they moved to the Department's payroll is now higher than the ancillary grant available to the school prior to the reductions being applied. A full review of the grant was completed by the Department in September of this year, and an update was provided to the school on the breakdown of the grant. I suggest that if the school is not happy with the breakdown of the grant, its representatives should go back to the bean counters, as the Deputy called them, or whoever did this in the Department. If the breakdown is wrong, the school should be able to demonstrate that it is wrong. Genuinely, no school should be penalised as a result of the good work that was done to get school secretaries onto the Department of education payroll. If there is a particular problem with this school such as an anomaly in the way the calculations are being done - the Deputy has the update from the school, and the breakdown of the grant has been given to the school by the Department - there is a bit of work to be done between the school and the Department to sort it out.

I will definitely bring this matter back to the Minister. I suggest that the Deputy should speak to the school's board of management and the school authorities to make sure they have received the breakdown of the grant with the clarifications on it. If the school representatives do not agree with that breakdown, my suggestion is that they should go back to the Department and try to get the matter ironed out that way.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. It could be an issue in other schools so we have to get it right. The transfer of school secretaries to the Department of education payroll was the right move - it is very important that we applaud it - but I do not believe schools should lose out as a result of the good work that was done at that time.

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