Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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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.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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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.

Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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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.

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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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.