Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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123. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will introduce pension parity for school secretaries and caretakers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30983/25]

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

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.

In relation to caretakers, currently the majority of primary and voluntary secondary schools receive assistance to provide for caretaking services under grant schemes therefore caretakers, unlike secretaries are not paid directly by the Department.

The Department is committed to ensuring that school caretakers will be afforded the opportunity to avail of a similar package offered to school secretaries in the near future. Once an agreement is reached a process of onboarding caretakers to payroll and adjustments to grant funding will be undertaken, similar to that implemented for secretaries.

The agreement which was given effect under Circular 36/2022 did not grant public servant status to school secretaries and therefore this cohort do not have access to the Single Public Service Pension Scheme. The granting of such status is not a matter that this department can decide unilaterally, and proposals in this regard will need to be considered in detail by this department and the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.