Carol Nolan highlights ongoing challenges with ancillary grant funding for schools

INDEPENDENT TD Carol Nolan has highlighted the ongoing challenges facing primary and post-primary schools in Offaly and Laois with Tánaiste Micheál Martin during Leaders Questions in the Dáil.

Deputy Nolan said that despite some very positive progress for schools around school secretaries pay, the school-book grant, and the schools meals scheme, substantial problems remain with many schools provided with zero state funding for ancillary services such as caretaking and general maintenance.

The Independent TD informed the Tánaiste that she had established through a parliamentary question that the annual total for the ancillary grant funding fell from €96 million in 2019 to €83 million in 2023.

“This makes a mockery of what I can only accept is the Minister's sincere wish for schools not to continually resort to parental contributions merely to enable a school to maintain itself as a safe environment,” said Deputy Nolan.

“I ask the Tánaiste to urgently review and indeed reverse the current situation whereby schools are seeing the value of ancillary grants fall. This deficit is the value of the salary paid to grant-funded secretaries. It is therefore grossly misleading to champion progress on the secretaries' pay issue while concealing the fact that this progress is being achieved on the back of a major reduction in other areas that schools simply cannot do without, such as caretaking services.

“They have resolved one problem only to put another in its place. Schools do not know where they stand or how they will pay for vital services. I also know that while the book grant has been helpful there also serious problems emerging with that scheme also. So it is really is a case of one thing on top of another for many schools.

“The Tánaiste must acknowledge that it is entirely inappropriate for the Department to give to schools with one hand while relentlessly clawing back with the other hand.”

In his response to Deputy Nolan, the Tánaiste thanked her for raising the matter while also acknowledging that over the years, there has only been incremental progress on many funding issues relating to how school operate. The Tánaiste assured Deputy Nolan that he would bring the issues around ancillary grant funding to the attention of the Minister for Education.