John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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504. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the progress that has been made towards her Department directly employing cleaners and caretakers in primary schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29076/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Department recognises the vitally important role of Caretakers and Cleaners within school communities, as a key link between students, school leaders and other staff, ensuring that both the caretaking and cleaning needs of the school are met. Without them, our schools would be unsustainable.

The majority of primary and voluntary secondary schools receive assistance to provide for caretaking and cleaning services under grant schemes. Where a school employs a staff member to support those functions those staff are not public servants but employees of individual schools and responsibility for terms of employment rests with the school.

Since September 2023 my department has been providing a payroll service for former grant funded school secretaries. This happened on foot of an Agreement reached in 2022, under the auspices of the WRC, that secretaries would move to a centralised pay roll managed by the Department and receive new terms and conditions of employment. These included a pay scale aligned with that of Grade III/CO in ETBs, improved annual leave entitlements, improved maternity provisions and paid sick leave in excess of the statutory requirement. The Department is committed to ensuring that school caretakers will be afforded the opportunity to avail of a similar package to that offered to school secretaries in the near future.

As there are obvious differences between the roles of school secretaries and school caretakers, a detailed survey was undertaken to inform my officials understanding of the current working patterns as well as terms and conditions of work for school caretakers, and the analysis of the survey results is nearing completion.

The issue of public service status is complex and needs to have regard to the state of the public finances and the repercussive effects of any such proposals for other grant-funded groups of non-public servants. For those reasons, any proposals must be considered in detail by my own officials and those in Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform as the granting or otherwise of public servant status is not within the scope of this Department.