Parents holding fundraising events and attending school-related meetings outside of school premises run the risk of not being covered by the school's insurance policy, a leading parents' association has said. John Downes reports.
According to the Congress of Catholic School Parent Associations (CSPA), there is also some confusion as to whether even those events taking place in schools are covered.
Changes to the status of parents' associations, contained in the 1998 Education Act, mean that any parents' association organising a school-related activity must have its own insurance, the organisation says.
Such associations were originally not recognised as independent of the school to which they are affiliated, but the Education Act granted them autonomy.
This means that insurance companies no longer automatically include parents' associations on individual school insurance policies, the association says.
As a result, many parents involved in school fundraising are unaware that they may not in fact be covered. "Parents usually run events without checking with the boards of management of their school," a CSPA spokeswoman said. "They automatically assume that they are insured and that is not the case.
"If parents have not gone to the board of management and got permission to hold an event, and received a guarantee in writing that they have insurance, then if someone has a serious accident (while in their care) people could end up losing their homes."
According to the association, which represents the interests of parents and their children in the Catholic voluntary secondary school sector, all schools should be aware of the situation, or they could find themselves "in serious trouble".
Mr George O'Callaghan, general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body (JMB),which represents the management of voluntary secondary schools, said no board of management should leave its parents' association exposed to any potential liability.
However, the JMB's advice to parents' associations was to take out their own public liability cover. It also advised its members to consider any application for financial assistance to pay for this insurance in the context of arrangements for funding parents' associations.