I raise again the question of support for school secretaries and caretakers. It is unfortunate that the talks at the Workplace Relations Committee, WRC, collapsed and the issue is now going to the Labour Court in January 2026. We need to give a clear commitment in this House that we will look to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible. It is a real concern for long-serving school caretakers and school secretaries. I am thinking of people like Valerie Gregory and Declan Murray at St. Michael and St. Peter school in Arklow, who have given over 20 years of service, husband and wife team Nancy and Mick Byrne in Riverchapel National School who, again, have given a lifetime of dedication, and Martha Hogan, without whom Monaseed National School could not work. I was proud to be able to support their campaign. It is critical that we do everything we can, especially now coming up to Christmas, to give a commitment to school caretakers and secretaries and indicate that we will get this long-running dispute finally resolved.

As the Deputy will appreciate, the Minister for Education is not around. Regardless of that, I agree. The concept of school secretaries and caretakers and other ancillary staff who are integral to the operation of our schools being on picket lines was, to be quite honest, very difficult. The industrial machinery of the State is the vehicle through which this issue needs to be progressed. I hope the unions and the Department will be able to enter into it in a spirit of co-operation and we do not see what we saw before. Nobody wants to see children having to walk past their school secretaries and caretakers. At the end of the day, we have to leave this issue, in the same way we would with any other industrial relations issue, to the industrial relations mechanics of the country to be able to resolve it.

I am sure, at the end of the day, that where there is a will, there is a way.