Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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232. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if plans are being put in place for a school in cases in which a cleaner who is working can be paid during the holiday period instead of applying for Jobseeker’s; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21864/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Cleaners are valued members of our school communities who carry out work vital to the operation of our schools.

There are a number of employment arrangements in place for school cleaners, including those caretakers who were employed under a limited scheme introduced by the government of the time in 1978/1979, which was discontinued in 1985, and cleaners employed in ETB schools whose terms and conditions are governed by the appropriate ETB - these may also be employed as caretakers or general operatives.

The majority of primary and post-primary schools receive assistance to provide for cleaning services under grant schemes. Where a school employs a staff member to support those functions those staff members are employees of the individual schools and as such responsibility for terms of employment and their rate of pay rests with the school or Board of Management. The Department of Education does not play a role in the agreement of these terms of employment, nor do they set the rate of pay. In the cases where a school may be outsourcing necessary cleaning functions to a commercial cleaning company, the employer of those cleaners is the company itself and not the school: in such instances, terms of employment would rest with the company and not the school or the department.

At present there is no agreement in place to review the pay and terms of conditions of employment for school cleaners, although some individuals who perform cleaning duties within schools may be encapsulated within the current discussions on school caretakers, if they undertake those cleaning duties within their wider caretaking role. In the normal course, there are ongoing discussions with the public service unions on any and all matters relating to pay agreements. Any review of changes to the employment of school cleaners or other pay mechanisms such as allowances, can occur only under those processes and any such proposals would need to be considered in detail by the Department, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and the relevant unions.