IPPN

Published: 13 December 2007

Dear Minister Hanafin,

The issue of water charges being levied on primary schools is a matter of serious concern to Boards of Management and especially to Principal Teachers. Water is a new expense to schools and despite the recent €15 increase in capitation grants the overall increase in utility costs, continues to out-strip any increase in schools' income.

Local Authorities appear to be classifying schools as businesses in order to justify these charges. However, schools are not businesses, they do not manufacture or sell goods & services and they are certainly not in the "business" of making profit. Primary schools can not register as a public or private company and are unable to register for VAT. If we take the current understanding that Primary Schools are businesses to its logical conclusion, then surely Local Authority Rates should also apply.

We understand from today's media that a senior commission environment directorate general official, Jorge Rodríguez Romero is of the belief that an exemption from water charges is possible and not in contravention of the EU Directive in question.

'The Government, he said, was entitled to make exceptions to the directive, which in any event did not come into effect until September 2010, by itself and without the prior approval of the commission.' (sic) Mark Hennessy, Irish Times, 13/12/07

I ask you to consider the following options:

• 1. Advise Boards of Management and Principal Teachers to defer requests for payment of water charges until a satisfactory outcome is achieved
• 2. Request of the Minister for the Environment a special derogation for Primary schools based on the aforementioned points
• 3. In the event of a derogation not being agreed to, consideration by the DES to initiate a single bilateral payment on behalf of all Primary schools to the Department of the Environment

Primary schools will not receive the first instalment of the capitation grant for the 2007/2008 academic year until mid January 2008. However, the operational costs of schools have been accruing since September 1^st. Our research shows that the majority of schools have either overdrawn their bank accounts or have numerous outstanding creditors. This is reality for schools and any amount of water conservation, whilst laudable in itself, will not make a difference. I want to re-iterate the importance of eliminating water charges in Primary Schools and the need to bring in line their level of funding with that of Second Level Schools.

I trust you will address the serious impact of water charges on primary schools' budgets and their consequential impact on budgets in your Department.

I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.

Is mise le meas

____________

Seán Cottrell
Director

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Published: 12 December 2007

IPPN appeared before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education on 30th November 2006 following an invitation to present their findings on the recruitment and retention crisis in school leadership.

This wide-ranging presentation by Seán Cottrell, Geraldine D'Arcy and John Curran lasted just over an hour. The Committee were presented with copies of the IPPN report, "Investing in School Leadership" and heard a summary of the main points and arguments from this. The format was a presentation by IPPN followed by questions and answers from the committee. The committee engaged fully and with some with interest, asking relevant and insightful questions.

It was interesting to note the presence of Senator Joe O'Toole, former INTO General Secretary, who, while not a member of the committee, was present at the hearing deputising for other members who were engaged in an education debate in the Senate.

One of the 14 topics presented by IPPN on the problems of recruitment and retention was the proposal of a separate salary scale for principals in the context of the current Benchmarking process. For those of you interested, this topic took up approx. 0.015% of the presentation i.e. 131 words of the 8,732 in total in the hearing.

A full transcript of the hearing is available by clicking here or by accessing the JOC website and following the links to JOC parliamentary debates.

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Published: 09 October 2007

Interview with Matt Cooper on The Last Word October 9th 2007 on the topic of Performance Management and its impacton School Principals.

To listen to this interview, please click on the link below.

Larry Fleming Interview- Last Word 08/10/07

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Published: 04 October 2007

eTwinning Weeks 2007 are being organised to focus on encouraging schools and teachers to get involved in eTwinning this autumn. Between 17 September and 19 October, special events, activities and prizes are planned across Europe. eTwinning is a simple and straightforward way of finding a partner school in the rest of Europe to work together on a range of activities, using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

See www.etwinning.net for further details or email etwinning@leargas.ie

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