Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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318. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will meet with an organisation (details supplied) and reconsider a decision to withdraw recognition and funding from this organisation. [22532/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The voice of parents and that of children and young people is of critical importance to me as Minister and to my Department in all of our work. Children and parents are engaged with regularly, in a variety of ways, in relation to all significant policy being developed by my Department. To assist with ensuring that they have a strong voice, my Department provides funding to ensure that parents and students are supported to have national representation.

My Department has an obligation under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Circular 13/2014 to ensure that all Exchequer funds are accounted for and properly managed and that there is transparency and accountability in the management of public money.

My Department, following engagement with the NPCPP, commissioned an independent company to conduct a governance and financial review of the Council. This was in keeping with practice across other Government departments. Following a publicly tendered procurement process, an external company with considerable experience of governance and related issues, was contracted to conduct a review of the governance and financial arrangements applying in the National Parents’ Council Post Primary (NPCPP) and to make observations and recommendations on foot of same.

Subsequently the NPCPP’s Board consistently and repeatedly declined to engage with this review process. The final report of the external governance expert, which was undertaken without the co-operation of the NPCPP, has now been published.

As a result of the serious governance issues which have arisen with the NPCPP, which have been set out comprehensively to the Board and are also detailed in the governance review report, the decisions by the Department to cease funding and withdraw the recognition of the NPCPP as a ‘national association of parents’ under the Education Act 1998, Section 2, are unchanged.

It is the view of the Department that to make any further grant payments would be a breach of its obligations to protect Exchequer funding. The Department did however, offer to pay for any outstanding appropriate costs.

In order to ensure continuity of support for parents and their continued input into policy making, my Department has formally requested the National Parents’ Council Primary to extend its remit and provide representation and support to post-primary parents with immediate effect.

Officials from my Department have been in continual contact with the NPCPP. Throughout the review process, including what was intended as a preparatory phase, senior officials from my Department sought to engage with the NPCPP, including offering meetings, but these offers were not availed of including the most recent offer to meet from the Department by letter of 14 March 2023 and again by email of 20 April 2023. A reply to the email of 20 April 2023 is awaited from the NPCPP.

The Department sincerely regrets the situation which has arisen directly as a result of the actions of the Board of the NPCPP. As I referenced before, bodies in receipt of Exchequer funding are obliged to meet governance standards and to be transparent and accountable with regard to how this funding is used. Having strong parental representation remains a top priority for me and I am grateful to the National Parents Council (Primary) for stepping in to assist and ensure continuity.