David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Do I hear somebody tweeting? A bird has got in. Put her out through the skylight.

School secretaries are on €12,000 a year which is absolutely nothing but they love their job. They are an essential and crucial part of a school, organising timetables and payments. However, they are completely and utterly neglected. Bringing them into the public service would cost a maximum of €4 million out of a budget of €10 billion. For goodness sake, can we not do the decent thing and bring these hard-working people in out of the cold? In the summer, they have to go on the dole. Is that not a lovely way to treat our secretaries who keep our schools going? I am appealing to the Government to bring them in. It will only cost €4 million, a sum that would get lost in a hole in one’s tooth.