There are not many people who can get extensive national radio, television and print coverage for a press release written beside the piano in a home in Rush, Co Dublin. It is an indication of the influence of Barbara Johnston, spokeswoman for the Catholic School Parents Association (CSPA), that she can do exactly this, writes John Downes

A volunteer who left her part-time job working in residential childcare to devote herself more fully to the position, few would doubt her commitment to her cause. But what does it tell us about the strength of the parent movement at second level here?

How can it be that a woman whose organisation has 102 affiliated schools - out of a total of 743 second-level schools here - can have such immediate and vocal access to the media, The Irish Times included?

Johnston, who famously described the ASTI as "terrorists" during the bitter pay dispute of a few years ago, is sanguine about her role.

"Any time anything goes wrong or anybody needs a comment on parent issues, my phone will ring, whether good, bad or indifferent," she says. "Nobody else is doing it. . . I think I have a voice that people listen to because I am saying things that people want to hear."

Others, however, say it simply underlines how the views of parents have come to be dominated by a committed yet vocal minority. As a result, the real opinions of most parents are being ignored.

It is a situation that is not helped by the past history of the body that is supposed to represent second-level parents - the National Parents Council (Post Primary).

Made up entirely of volunteers, it currently has four member organisations. They often make uneasy bedfellows.

Here is what Jack O'Brien, who was commissioned by the Department of Education to assess parental representation at second level, had to say: "The performance of the council has, I believe, been patchy over the years. It seems to me that there has been a significant amount of tensions due to personality difficulties and, indeed, ideological clashes. Much of the council's time is taken up with internal argumentation rather than with the broad issues affecting education. . . There is a history of resignations of members and a significant amount of tension."

There is no love lost between Johnston et al and the NPC (PP), which the CSPA left two years ago. Johnston says it did so primarily because it felt the council was not representing the CSPA's views.

"There were a lot of egos in that room, and that just created a huge difficulty," Johnston says. "They were very committed to protecting what they wanted within the NPC. It almost became a rivalry about who we would commit resources to."

Eleanor Petrie, a life insurance compliance manager from Dublin has been president of the NPC (PP) for the past year.

Describing herself as someone who has been involved in organisations all her life and who is always willing to volunteer, she is perhaps typical of the kind of person who currently gets involved in parental representation.

She is aware of the challenges facing her organisation in widening its appeal. Indeed, even trying to establish how many schools it represents as fully affiliated members can be difficult.

Unofficially, some estimate that under 65 per cent of schools are affiliated to either the NPC PP or the CSPA. A reason for this may be that many schools, particularly in disadvantaged areas, simply do not have parents' associations, and cannot afford to pay membership fees if they do.

But the parents' organisations say they will still represent parents at such schools if they have a problem.

Others argue that some school principals do not want an active parents' association as they fear that such involvement might lead to interference in how they run their school. They, therefore, do little to encourage and promote the establishment of an association, with a knock-on effect for the numbers of schools affiliating.

Similarly, many busy parents have legitimate concerns that they will be used as cash cows, only there to fundraise for the new school gym, and will be ignored when it comes to real decision-making. So they decide that it is just not worth their while getting involved in the existing parent associations.

However, the relatively low number of affiliations also indicates a more subtle point - that, perhaps, the organisations do not represent as many people as they claim.

Helping a parent when he or she has a problem is only one aspect of the parenting bodies' role: they also have a broader remit to formulate policy after consulting their affiliated members. But if large numbers of schools are not affiliated, then their voices are being ignored.

For her part, Petrie acknowledges that her own organisation has, in the past, spent too much time focusing on internal squabbling. She also accepts that how the NPC (PP) deals with parents "on the ground" is vital to getting them involved.

Many in the existing parents' organisations legitimately claim that if they were to receive more funding, they could reach out to more parents on issues which are of real concern to them. This could include encouraging schools that currently have no parents' associations to get involved.

But for this to happen, the Department of Education would have to be convinced that the NPC (PP), one of the bodies through which this could be achieved, has moved on from its bitter internal feuding.

The reaffiliation of the CSPA might be a first good step, although this remains unlikely at present.

Moreover, in order to motivate parents, the NPC (PP) clearly needs to appeal to a broader constituency than just a self-selecting group of committed individuals.

Many parents, busy with their lives, simply will not go to evening meetings in schools throughout the winter months unless they feel they are really being listened to.

Petrie says she is confident that a full-time chief executive of the NPC (PP) could be appointed in the near future - and that things are beginning to change.

But another ongoing row between the organisation and its largest current member could further weaken its strength, and hardly augurs well for the future.

Indeed, should the National Parents Association for Vocational Schools and Community Colleges withdraw from the NPC (PP), as has been suggested may happen, it would mean the vast majority of existing parents' organisations are no longer represented by the NPC (PP).

In the meantime, thousands of parents in secondary schools around the country have little interest in getting involved in the NPC (PP) as it currently stands.

When you talk to any parent about subjects such as bullying, drugs or indiscipline in the classroom, they will immediately be interested. But tell them about disputed administration costs in the National Parents Council's head office in Dublin, or the minutiae of various disputes with Johnston's CSPA - clearly, they will not.