Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I ask everyone attending remotely to put their microphones on mute when not contributing so the committee does not pick up any background noise or feedback. As usual, I remind all of those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off. Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex.

As they are within the precincts of Leinster House, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty, as Cathaoirleach, to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the House or an official of the House either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

On the agenda for today's session is pension parity and working conditions for school secretaries and caretakers. I welcome the following witnesses from Fórsa, Mr. Andy Pike, national secretary, Ms Luisa Carty, chair of the Fórsa school secretary branch, and Mr. David Hearne, chair of the Fórsa caretakers' branch. We are delighted to have them here. I thank them for their time. I call Mr. Pike to make his opening statement.

Mr. Andy Pike:

Fórsa welcomes the opportunity to address the committee on pension parity and working conditions for school secretaries and caretakers.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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There is no filming allowed in the room. I am sorry to interrupt Mr. Pike.

Mr. Andy Pike:

No problem.

The basis of the current campaign for pension parity is simple. We are seeking parity and equality in the pensions and conditions of school secretaries and caretakers when compared to special needs assistants, SNAs, and teachers working in the same schools. Teachers, SNAs, secretaries and caretakers are all employed by their school board of management. Following the Fórsa pay agreement of 2022, secretaries are now paid by the Department of Education and Youth payroll system in the same way as teachers and SNAs. The Minister for Education and Youth is the paymaster and sets the terms and conditions of employment for all such staff, including granting access to the single public service pension scheme. This results in a teacher and an SNA within the same school being paid in the same way as a secretary by the Department of education. Circulars are issued by the Minister for education setting out salary levels, yet secretaries are not public servants and are denied access to the pension scheme whereas access to the scheme has been granted for teachers and SNAs.

It is our contention that there is no justifiable objective reason for the exclusion of secretaries and caretakers from those pension arrangements. The continued refusal to confer public service status to both secretaries and caretakers has locked out several generations of school staff from secure income in retirement. The Fórsa support our secretaries campaign, which ran from 2019 to 2022, succeeded in securing a groundbreaking pay agreement that sought to address the chronic low pay levels for secretaries who at the time were earning only €13 per hour. The final pay agreement provided for transfer to the clerical officer pay scale with some credit for prior service. This agreement increased pay levels for many secretaries by 50%. The fact that secretaries benefited from those significant pay increases should be seen in the context of the clerical officer grade being the lowest paid grade in the public service. Secretaries remain on mainly part-time contracts with most not even earning a full weekly wage during school term.

The agreement provided for five days paid sick leave rising to ten in line with statutory entitlements, and 22 days paid annual leave. Secretaries were given the option of claiming an allowance equal to job seekers benefit for weeks when they were laid off by their school to ensure they did not have to sign on during weeks of school closure. Over 80% of secretaries have signed up to the agreement and all new secretaries are employed on the new terms. The agreement states a similar pay framework for caretakers must be implemented. However, some three years into the lifetime of the agreement the Department has not brought forward any firm proposals for caretakers, leaving so many members on very low pay. Their hourly rate of pay has not increased since 2019 and remains €13 per hour unless an increase can be agreed locally.

The refusal to confer the same public service status for secretaries and caretakers as conferred on teachers and SNAs working side by side in the same schools also has other impacts. Whereas teachers and SNAs have access to the public service sick leave scheme, including access to extended critical illness benefits, secretaries and caretakers do not. Therefore, in the same school, a teacher or an SNA who becomes seriously ill with a cancer diagnosis has access to six months full pay and six months half pay, including the crucial illness benefit, whereas a secretary only has an entitlement to five days paid sick leave and a caretaker has no access to paid sick leave at all. Teachers and SNAs also have access to other public service entitlements, including bereavement leave of 20 days for an immediate close relative and five days for a member of their extended family. A secretary or a caretaker who experiences the same type of bereavement in the same school has no access to paid bereavement leave.

This disparity of treatment shows the truth of the way the State views school secretaries and caretakers. They had to fight for many years to get on the first rung of the public service pay system, and caretakers have still no pay deal after three years. They are treated differently when they are sick, they are treated differently when they suffer a bereavement, and they are not deemed to be worthy of the same pension rights as their colleague teachers and SNAs employed by the same school board of management. They are treated differently, they are treated as second class employees, and they have been exploited for decades and decades.

This campaign is unusual because it is rare to find an issue raised by a trade union that has seemingly universal support among the public, parents, students, colleagues across the schools and many political parties. Any objective assessment of the employment status of school secretaries and caretakers would result in the conclusion that as a group they have been taken for granted, undervalued and ignored within the schools' sector and the political world for far too long.

However, this Government in common with previous Governments has refused to address this inequality citing the costs and a policy position of not extending access to the public service pension scheme and public service status for any new groups of staff. The Department of Education and Skills, as it was, in 2019 gave an estimate in evidence before this committee that the full cost of providing access to the pension scheme for our school secretary members would be €30 million. The argument that this very small measure is unaffordable simply does not stand up to scrutiny given the very healthy state of the finances of the State.

On 8 October 2020 the then Tánaiste, Dr. Leo Varadkar, when answering a question in the House on the issue of school secretaries and caretakers pay and pensions stated:

The Government really values the essential work done by school secretaries and caretakers. Often, the school secretary is the first person one meets on the way into a school and the caretaker is the last person to leave in the evening. Schools would not operate without them and the role they play in our education system is as important as that of schoolteachers, SNAs and school principals. For that reason, it is the Government's objective to regularise their employment, terms and conditions, and pension rights.

We have no doubt that this statement was made in good faith and the sentiments expressed were heartfelt and genuine. However, when the issue of pension provision was raised again and again in negotiations in the Workplace Relations Commission in 2020, the union was informed that pensions could not and would not be discussed as the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform had issued instructions prohibiting any consideration of pension provision for secretaries and caretakers.

Our members have now concluded that they simply cannot rely on promises and commitments made by politicians, no matter how senior and distinguished they might be, and it is clear that the two-tier employment framework will be defended at all costs by senior civil servants within that single Government Department, who themselves enjoy the benefits of public service status but who continue to do everything in their considerable power to deny the same status and benefits for low-paid secretaries and caretakers.

It is also clear to school secretaries and caretakers that the current Minister for Education and Youth genuinely wants to help to resolve this problem. We also appreciate the support of many elected representatives from across the House from all political parties who agree that all schools' staff should have the same rights and entitlements. Yet none of that support, welcome though it is, can really make the difference needed to secure public service status and pension rights for school secretaries and caretakers.

When we think of our industrial relations system, it is tempting to believe that the institutions of the State should be capable of resolving this matter. A close examination demonstrates that the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, as it is now titled, will only respond to pressure if that pressure is applied in the strongest way possible. To make progress it is necessary to apply sufficient pressure to ensure that a genuine negotiation can proceed without the Department yet again being able to exercise a complete veto on discussion of pension provision.

Our members have decided, therefore, that after decades of writing letters, of lobbying their elected representatives, and of being let down time and again, the time is right to go on strike. Our ballot of secretaries and caretakers for an indefinite strike was supported by 98% of members with a turnout of over 80%. We have a clear and strong mandate for the strike, which will commence on the morning of the 28 August next with a national rally on Merrion Street outside the offices of the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. We will place pickets on those buildings for the duration of the dispute to shine a light on those responsible for denying this justice and perpetuating this injustice. From 1 September our members will picket outside their own schools where we are certain their cause will be appropriately supported by teachers, SNAs, students and parents.

Those responsible for determining policy on public service pensions may argue that the days where new staff could be admitted to the scheme are long gone, that to allow any new secretary or caretaker into the scheme would cause contagion. I have heard them use that very term. If this were true why did the Department of Education in June 2023 offer a deal to secretaries and caretakers in the old 1978-1979 scheme, which provided entry to the scheme and recognition for pension purposes of all their service. This offer was made to a very small cohort of staff following representations from Fórsa. It resulted in a small number of secretaries and caretakers, who previously had been unable to access the pension scheme, being offered the full public service pension in return for their lump sum being reduced to cover employee contributions. If that offer was sanctioned by the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation we see no reason the same or similar terms cannot be offered to all secretaries and caretakers working for school boards of management. The refusal to even consider taking such steps has caused great anger and frustration, as demonstrated by the outstanding ballot result in favour of strike action.

In summary, Fórsa has informed the Department of Education and Youth that we are available at any time for meaningful face-to-face talks on the terms by which our members will be granted public service status with access to the pension scheme. If our campaign succeeds, we will see an end the current situation whereby the secretary or caretaker, who after working for 40 years in the same school, and who is an integral part of the school community would retire this year with no pension provision while watching their teacher and SNA colleagues retire with full pension benefits. The secretary or caretaker who falls seriously ill and does not have the most basic safety net of sick pay would be provided with occupational sick pay in the same way as every other staff group in the schools' community, including access to critical illness benefit. On behalf of the members we represent I thank the committee for allowing us the opportunity of setting out the relevant issues.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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For anyone watching at home or in the Gallery, all proceedings are live streamed, or you can retrieve hourly video files retrospectively if any organisation wishes to use clips. These will be found at oireachtas.ie. The video files are updated hourly if anyone wants to use them.

I thank Mr. Pike for his opening statement. We will now go to members' questions. This is a split session and we will move into another session later. We will need to be a little bit tight on time at four minutes per member.

Shane Curley (Fianna Fail)
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I know Ms Carty from home but generally everything I will say today is from my own experience as a teacher in a secondary school for ten years before I became a Senator. The big issue for me is that secretaries and caretakers are not recognised as public sector workers in the same sense as teachers and SNAs. This is the huge bugbear for me. Every day when I walk into school, if it is at half past seven in the morning to train a volleyball team, a hurling team or a camogie team, the first person I meet is either the secretary or the caretaker. They are there putting out chairs for whatever meeting might be going on in the gym or they are doing some genuinely vital work in the school. The school would not function without them. I fully see the merit in the arguments being made by Mr. Pike.

They are separate roles. For example, if a teacher is sick and cannot get to school, the first person he or she thinks of ringing is the school secretary. It is not the school principal or the year head but it is the secretary. School secretaries play a hugely vital role. I am not here today just to pay lip service. I genuinely do not believe a school could function without a secretary and a caretaker, at second level in particular.

There is a huge body of work to be done here. I accept that Fórsa is fully open to negotiation with the relevant stakeholders. All I can say is that I am fully supportive. I have spoken to Ms Carty already about this and we have had good engagement. I am fully supportive of what Fórsa is looking for because it is a genuine public service that is being carried out by school secretaries and school caretakers. I would not have functioned as a teacher without the caretaker being able to look after me at times when I needed him, or the secretary in other cases. In a lot of schools the secretary actually runs the school. They run the day-to-day business of a school. I do not know how a school would function without either. To take them away from a school and say they are not providing a public service would be incredulous in my view.

I fully support what Fórsa is looking for and I am here to help in any way I can. I am available to engage with the witnesses in any way I can in the future. They have my full support going forward. If there is anything I can do to lobby on their behalf to try to impact any kind of change, then I am here to help. Ms Carty has my number, so she will be keeping on top of me.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you. Does Mr. Pike want to respond to any of those remarks?

Mr. Andy Pike:

This is very typical of the interactions all of our members have with their elected representatives. Our problem is that policy on this issue does not seem to be controlled by anybody in the Oireachtas. That is our problem and that is why industrial action may be necessary.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Very good. I now call Deputy O'Meara, who has four minutes.

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here today. I could echo a lot of what Senator Curley has said but I am conscious of not doing that to try to make the most of our time. I have interacted with a lot of schools, particularly in recent months, that have seen growing pupil numbers. The secretaries and caretakers have been there for years but the demands of the job have grown, particularly in the case of secretaries, with pupil numbers increasing rapidly in some of the secondary schools I can think of. The additional secretarial support has not been found and it has put an enormous amount of pressure on the usually one secretary in the school. Some I can think of have been there for many years but the demands of their roles have increased dramatically due to the number of pupils within the school. The same is true of the role of caretaker and what they are expected to do with an expanding and physically growing school.

I get the points Mr. Pike made, so I am trying not to question him on those. That was incredibly clear, and has been made incredibly clear to us over a long period. However, in those specific circumstances, is this current situation resulting in those schools not being able to get the additional secretarial or caretaker workers they need to help them in their positions?

Ms Luisa Carty:

The Department has a formula. We do not know what it is, but if anybody wants hours they have to apply through the Department. Regarding school secretaries, everyone who moved over, moved over on what they had. The schools are now applying for hours. The Department has a formula, as I said, but we do not know what it is. There are schools which cannot get the hours they need. The secretaries were being underpaid previously and the money that was going into the school previously was from the ancillary services grant. Schools were using that to put in the hours they thought they could afford at the time. Now, since the Department is paying, schools want more hours but they are not able to get them because we are told there is an allocation model in place. This is going on for over two years now. We still do not know what it is and schools are still scraping to get the hours to cover what they need, both for secretaries and caretakers. We do not know what the allocation is; only the Department knows.

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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If I can follow up on this, specifically on the free school books scheme and the administrative burden that was put on secretaries because of that, how have the Fórsa members found that? Were there supports available to them to get that scheme out?

Ms Luisa Carty:

The amount of money that has been put in place for this is minimal. This job involves manual labour. It has been imposed on a lot of school secretaries without their consent in a lot of places. They are told it is part of their job and they have to come in and do it. However, the amount of work that is involved in it and the expectations from the Department of education as regards the length of time in which this can be done means it is just not feasible. While it is very welcome for parents and families with children in the schools, it is a huge amount of work. Our job has evolved so much from what we used to do years ago when we started to what it is now. This is just an extra on top of that.

Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Carty. I will leave it there.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The next speaker is Senator Linda Nelson Murray, who has four minutes.

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. Similar to my colleague, Senator Curley, I do not think anyone around this table would disagree about the importance of the work secretaries and caretakers do. I have nine and ten year old girls and if I was not able to dial that secretary's number and have a chat with her, I would be lost. It is so important. Just so that I understand it properly, are we saying that we got the pay more or less sorted for secretaries a couple of years ago but we are now looking for the pension side of it? For the caretakers, am I right in saying that they are on €13 an hour? Do caretakers not get the minimum wage of €13.50? Does this not apply to them? Will the auto-enrolment that will happen take into account caretakers and secretaries?

Mr. Andy Pike:

I will ask Mr. Hearne to come in on caretaker pay but the situation is that the last time the Department reviewed the hourly rate for school caretakers was 2019. The last circular on this is still at €13 an hour. Anything above that has to be negotiated with the board of management, so it is whatever someone's board of manager will give them. Auto-enrolment is far inferior to the public service pension arrangements. Even when that is implemented, we are still going to have this two-tier system, with teachers and SNAs within the public service arrangements but not caretakers. Will Mr. Hearne expand a little on caretakers pay?

Mr. David Hearne:

With caretakers pay, the circular states €13 per hour but when the minimum wage increased the majority of schools increased it. They agreed that was what the caretakers deserved but that was all they got. They did not get anything else. We have a caretaker in Cork who was in the school 16 years and is on €13.50 an hour, working 37 hours a week. It is very hard in the cost-of-living crisis we are in at the moment to get by on that wage.

Linda Nelson Murray (Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. I wish Fórsa the very best of luck in its negotiations. I really hope we do not see any strike action at the end of August because I can just imagine what it will be like for schools. I wish the witnesses the very best of luck in their negotiations and I fully support the work of secretaries and caretakers in schools.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The next speaker is Deputy Dempsey who has four minutes.

Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise for only arriving now but I was next door at the children committee which was meeting with Tusla. These are all really important issues so my timing is perfect, if I do say so myself.

I presume everyone here is very supportive of the witnesses and their cause. Unfortunately, we are at this point. We seem to be at this point every time there is a campaign for fairness. It is a stereotype and a generalisation but the majority of school secretaries are female. They are presumably women who are trying to strike a good work-life balance, whose kids may be or were in the school. What are the views of the witnesses on that? Do they believe that is a factor as to why it has taken so long to agree this?

My second question - and it is not a criticism of the witnesses - relates to the strategy for these discussions and negotiations. They always seem to start with pay, in that that becomes the template and then you go for pensions. Can that be addressed from Fórsa's side? What can we do to address it from Government's side? When the union members get some of their conditions improved, surely it is short-lived joy because the next thing another knock and blow comes their way. They are undervalued and under-appreciated and presumably that is why we see strike action. Is it literally just strategy that makes Fórsa go piecemeal after these things or how can we help the witnesses address that?

Mr. Andy Pike:

I thank the Deputy. We have said many times that there is a lot of entrenched gender discrimination at the heart of how school secretaries have been treated for decades and decades. If they had been a well-organised group of male workers, this would have been resolved many years ago. The vast majority are low-paid, very part-time employees in schools. For them to unionise across the schools' sector, when there is only one of them in a school unlike a factory or a big local authority where there are hundreds, in the way they have demonstrates the level of anger and disenchantment that is out there. We had 700 members when we secured the pay agreement. We now have three or four times as many. It should have been resolved years ago. If they had been all male workers, maybe it would have been resolved. They may have been listened to. That is a bit of a problem sometimes.

On the strategy for negotiation, unfortunately last time we were in the WRC for weeks and weeks and we thought we had an agreement that might well cover pensions, we were strung along and on the last day in the last session, it was very clear the Department of public expenditure had ruled out any discussion of pensions. We had people then on chronically low pay. There was a real need to get some extra money into pay packets so we agreed terms of a pay agreement, but we said very clearly we would be back looking for pensions. At that time we were in a relatively weak position. We could only influence what would happen in 700 schools. This time, letters of notice about an indefinite strike happening on 28 August have gone out to 2,600 schools, so the footprint of what we do now will be a lot bigger. We hope that will be enough to persuade the civil servants running the Department of public expenditure they need to have another look at this. Their history is they only move when that kind of pressure is put on them. We are simply not prepared to go into talks in the WRC for weeks and weeks only for the Department of public expenditure to say Fórsa may have an agreement with the Department of education but as far as it is concerned we are still not getting pensions. We know that is what is going to happen unless this action takes place.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Time is very tight and I thank the witnesses for coming in at short notice and the committee for organising it. I will come back to Ms Carty and Mr. Hearne for specific examples of the egregious parts of this, like how it feels at retirement after 40 years of work compared with their public service colleagues, the bereavement leave and the critical illness piece. I will come back to them in a minute so maybe they can have a think about it. The personal, human aspect of it is important to hear.

I will start with Mr. Pike. Is there a forum for engagement here or is Fórsa waiting to hear from the Department of public expenditure on this? On the argument that the floodgates will be opened, is the union making a particular case for school secretaries and caretakers? I am not arguing one way or another on that but it is said that if we provide public service status for them we will have to do it for a whole pile of other groups. Are there specific arguments Fórsa is making?

Mr. Andy Pike:

I thank the Deputy. We have received no invitation to talks from the Department of education at all. We have told it we are available. We would not see the Department of public expenditure in any talks. What it does is ring up at the last minute and tell everybody if the deal can be done or not. You do not get to meet the Department face to face most of the time.

On floodgates and setting a precedent, I cannot think of another situation where there is a single employer - a school is a single employer with a board of management - with different terms and conditions for one category of staff over another in respect of pensions. That does not happen anywhere else. It is a unique employment situation. Any large employer has to apply the same pension terms to all employees. They do not apply different terms to one group than to another, so this situation is somewhat unique. Resolving it would not set a precedent and would not open the floodgates to thousands more people coming into the scheme.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Pike. Will Mr. Hearne give an example of an egregious element of discrimination or difference?

Mr. David Hearne:

Obviously in our role as caretakers we can get injured on the job. If we do, we are not entitled to any sick leave. Nothing. We have to go to the Department of social welfare and get funding off it. If a colleague of ours who is a teacher trips in school, twists his or her ankle and is out for a week, he or she is paid for that. It is two totally different levels.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Has Mr. Hearne examples of that with his colleagues?

Mr. David Hearne:

Yes. A colleague up in Meath was out for 12 months with a back injury and he was literally getting no assistance but the assistance from social welfare. He was a young man with three kids and a mortgage and he was getting about €380 per week. It was disgraceful. If the same thing happened to a teacher and they were out for a number of months they would be covered.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, it is different. What about Ms Carty?

Ms Luisa Carty:

With the sick leave it is only five days, or even the critical illness. We had a member who had breast cancer and was out for a full year. All she got from her school was two days' sick leave. Another member who had breast cancer worked right through her chemotherapy because she could not afford to be out of work. With bereavement leave, a member's father died and there were two other staff in the same school who could go out for I think up to 20 days for-----

Mr. Andy Pike:

With that it would be five.

Ms Luisa Carty:

Yes. She had to go an have a conversation with her school about what she could take. We have had members who have been asked by the principal to pay for the sub to come in and cover their leave. It is totally unjust.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I thank everyone. Chair, I would-----

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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You will get in again later on. We will give-----

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I propose the committee write to the Minister just as a formal proposal on this issue and call for urgent engagement. I mean the Ministers for education and public expenditure.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, we can agree that now if it is urgent engagement. If you want more detail you might put it in writing and we can agree it at the next-----

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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That is no problem. I think people probably agree with that.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Is there agreement the committee should write? I agree with it.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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A Chathaoirligh, which Minister are we referencing? It seems the Minister in-----

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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The two Ministers is what I said.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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The two of them.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Ministers for education and public expenditure. Is that generally agreed by all members? It is, very good. I thank Deputy O'Rourke.

Deputy Roche has four minutes.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and thank the witnesses for their attendance. They are pushing an open door when I am sitting in from of them, I assure them of that. That comes from my experience and my involvement through Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board. I sat on a number of interviewing committees where the job descriptions for school secretaries and caretakers got more complex every day, especially with respect to the demands on them. They interface with parents, teaching staff and of course the general public. As somebody mentioned earlier they are the eyes and ears of the school and are required to understand everything with regard to child protection and how the whole school evolves in terms of the ever-changing climate.

I cannot for the life of me understand how we have arrived at a place where secretaries and caretakers feel it is necessary to protest and picket. That they have to resort to doing that to get this anomaly addressed indicates there has been a failing. My question is whether Fórsa has been invited back to the WRC, formally or otherwise, since the last ballot. Maybe it has and maybe it has not. If it has not, there is something fundamentally wrong.

Mr. Andy Pike:

I thank the Deputy. We have not received any invitation to talks from the employer side, be that the Department of education or anyone else. We have said to them we are available for talks on the basis the subject for discussion is how and when our members will be admitted to the single public service pension scheme, but we have not had any invitation to talks so far.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Okay. The witnesses are here and it is a very useful exercise and I thank them for coming. What is it they want from this committee? It is a very loaded question, but I am wondering about first steps.

Mr. Andy Pike:

We see this committee hearing and subsequent engagements as an opportunity to highlight one thing that probably goes a little bit wider than school secretaries and caretakers, which is that the way our industrial relations system is working at the moment, the people we negotiate with are not the decision-makers. We are concerned that no matter what senior members of the Government might say commitments can be ignored. We quoted Dr. Leo Varadkar a few minutes ago and we were extremely appreciative of the commitment he gave in the House back in 2020, but we are concerned that that commitment was simply ignored. It did not matter to those who control policy. They went their own way and said we were not even to discuss pensions. We are, therefore, concerned that no matter what political commitments we receive - and all support is welcome - our worry is the Department of public expenditure and reform will say "No". When we look at how it responds, it only responds to things like a strike. Secretaries and caretakers are the last group Fórsa would ever think would vote for a strike, but unfortunately that is the only language the Department of public expenditure seems to respond to. The determination of our members is demonstrated by the number who voted, with 98% voting in favour of going on strike, which is not something we see very often.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Senator Scahill is next and has four minutes.

Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending here today. My colleague beside me mentioned the value of the secretaries and caretakers. I grew up in a time when you knew your secretary in the school and the caretaker. Sometimes there was a fear element in relation to the teachers but there were constants who you could rely on. That was the secretaries and it probably still is. Therefore, as my colleagues have said here today, Fórsa is pushing an open door. I believe it has unanimous support from the committee on this issue.

Has Fórsa done up a costing on this? Is there a specific request on this and can we get details on it?

Mr. Andy Pike:

We gave evidence before this same committee in 2019 as did the then Department of Education and Skills. At that time, it put forward a figure to the committee that the cost of regularising school secretaries and caretakers within the public service and providing the pension would be between €30 million to €35 million and that was including retrospection. That was its figure in 2019. It has not produced any costings thus far. It has just said it is not even allowed to discuss it.

Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Hearne spoke on the specific case of the caretakers. Are all contracts secure and annualised now or are there still long-term contracts and situations where caretakers might have to go on social welfare during the summer?

Mr. David Hearne:

At present, a contract could be ten hours or up to 40 hours. Some caretakers have to sign on in the summer, Christmas, Easter and mid-term while others work a 52-week year. The discrepancy is massive. Even our contracts are not secure. If a school drops in size and the pupil numbers go down the caretaker can be lost. There is no job security for us. As a young caretaker myself, in the job seven years, only having got married and having bought my first home, I do not know if I have a job next year. I cannot say right here and now if in September 2026 I will still be employed as a school caretaker. I do not know. There is no job security there.

Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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It is very important that is sorted out. We will try and work with the caretakers on that because, as we have said, the caretaker is the person there at 7 a.m., and for school masses or any evening function, the caretaker is the last person there at night. Their status needs to be regularised and their jobs protected.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Senator Pauline Tully is next and has four minutes.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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The witnesses are very welcome. As a former teacher in a school I very much appreciate the work that both secretaries and caretakers do in the school. They know everybody on the ground, every child in the school and they know what is going on. Often they are the ones you go to to find out what is actually going on.

Am I right that with ETBs there is not only a discrepancy between the pay and conditions between the teachers and SNAs in the different types of schools? Someone could be doing a job in one school and another person doing the very same job in another school but because the patronage is different the pay and conditions are different?

Mr. Andy Pike:

I will ask Ms Carty to expand on this but the Senator is correct. If you secure a job in an ETB school, you are a public servant and have public service conditions and access to public service pensions. That is 10% of our schools where the patron is the ETB and the ETB administers the schools. In 90% of schools, the board of management is the employer and you are not a public servant but you are doing exactly the same work.

Ms Luisa Carty:

The work of a school secretary is exactly the same across the board but the way it is done with ETBs is that you are a public servant immediately. We had a member who was ancillary paid who moved overnight to an ETB school and just like that, she had all the terms and conditions including pensions, bereavement leave and sick leave; she has everything. Even in the group we are working with here, we have two secretaries working in the same school. One is Department-appointed and paid through a grant through the school. The other has now moved over to the Department payroll. They were working in the same office, doing the exact same work but one has bereavement leave, pension and everything and the girl right beside her in the same office has none of that. The disparity exists within schools but the ETBs are on a different level to us altogether, even though we are doing the exact same work.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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If pay and conditions can be granted to one sector, it makes absolutely no sense why they are not granted to all. We talk about how we are at full employment. Retention and recruitment has to be an issue when conditions are so poor. Is that the case?

Mr. David Hearne:

There are caretakers around the country who go into the job and after two years say they cannot do it any more because they are not getting paid for the summer holidays or Christmas holidays, so they go off and find different jobs. At the moment, working in Aldi is better paid than being a school caretaker. Take the hours we do in schools. You might be contracted for a 39-hour week. Over the last six weeks, because of the summer holidays coming along, with teachers coming in and changing classrooms etc., my average week was averaging between 45 to 50 hours -----

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Going over and beyond.

Mr. David Hearne:

----- and all we get is time in lieu because there is no overtime rate. It is up to each school what the rate is for overtime and in my school it is time in lieu.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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It is a month since the result of the ballot on strike action was made public. There was engagement in the Seanad on 18 June, during statements on education, and I raised this issue. I was told by the Minister that there would be engagement in the coming weeks. However, Fórsa is telling me there has been no engagement whatever which is very disappointing.

Mr. Andy Pike:

We met the Minister. We would meet the Minister through routine engagements - we have not met specifically on this issue – but each time we have met her since she was appointed she has told us she would like to see this issue resolved and she wants to be as helpful as she can be and I believe that is a genuine commitment she is making. However, it is not within the gift of the Minister for Education and Youth to determine policy on public sector pay and pensions. That responsibility rests elsewhere. When I say there has been no engagement I am in no way being critical of the current Minister nor of the Department because it is not up to them.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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Yes. Thank you.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That was very interesting. I think a lot of jaws dropped when we heard the disparity with ETBs. Per pay cycle or annually, what does that disparity look like for school secretary pay? Do the witnesses have figures to hand?

Mr. Andy Pike:

The disparity is mainly now due to the fact that if someone is employed by an education and training board as a clerical officer and assigned as a secretary in a school, they have a 52-week contract. If they are employed in the independent school sector by a school board of management, most secretaries are employed during term-time only. The gap in wages is that they will be earning 12 or 14 fewer weeks in terms of salary than their ETB counterpart. The pay gap is anywhere between 30% to 40%. The hourly rate is now coming together and is nearly the same because everyone is on the same pay scale. However, the difference in pay relates to the lack of a 52-week contract.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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To add to Deputy O’Rourke’s proposal, I think the committee should ask the Department for the history of how it got to the point that there was an ETB clerical pay scale as opposed to those left outside. There is a big issue we are talking about but that is woeful that there are two ways.

We will move on. Senator Joe Conway is next and has four minutes.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis na finnéithe as ucht teacht isteach ar maidin agus a gcás a phlé linn. I am delighted to be taking part in this discussion and am particularly delighted to welcome David from Waterford. I think it is the first time I have heard such a rich Waterford city accent abroad in any of the Houses or committees and it is truly uplifting.

I am probably the only person in this room who was a school principal before the dispensation, when my school had a secretary and a caretaker, and afterwards for a number of years when I was ably served by my secretary, Eileen, and a number of caretakers for many years. However, until that time, I was what was known as a teacher principal of a four-teacher school in Dunmore East. A teacher principal is a jack-of-all-trades, handyman and secretary, and my handyman skills were of the Frank Spencer nature. It was quite a challenge. The advent of the secretary and caretaker was liberating both for me and the staff in the school. I do not want to minimise the great work that is done by secretaries and caretakers. When I met Mr. Hearne outside I used the expression "pushing at an open door", which two colleagues have already used. It is illustrative of the fact that people are very much on the witnesses' side.

I will ask a few questions about the dreaded spectre of a strike in the autumn. These can be answered when I am finished so that the discussion will be more orderly. Have any discussions taken place with the teacher unions, for example, the INTO, in relation to what their response will be to the official pickets on the day? As a former principal, I know in my heart of hearts what the first day of school in September means to families and children, particularly the junior infants in the reception class. They are coming in and their parents may not have had another child in school. It is a red letter day for a family. The anticipation grows over the summer for the kids and parents. To have all this blown out of the water on 1 September, if not managed well, and I do not know what side is going to manage it, this has the potential to become a nasty and messy industrial action. To what extent has Fórsa thought this through? I am conscious of the possible backlash there will be from parents. Mr. Pike mentioned that he got a lot of support from all political parties. I would be slightly critical of that phrase because, in deference to the dozens of Independent Members in the Seanad and Dáil, the phrase he should be using is "all political parties and none". The Independents in particular are fully supportive of this cause as well.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy Ruth Coppinger.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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I wanted to get a response.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The Senator has used up his time, but he will get in again in a while.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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I will give Mr. Pike a chance to answer that in a second because, contrary to what the Senator just said, I believe there will be massive support from parents and communities for caretakers and secretaries. God forbid, there would be an effective strike day on the most important day of school. The work that needs to be done on that opening day by school secretaries and caretakers is key. There are papers to be processed and all of the things that have to be done. You strike while the iron is hot, to use that metaphor. The witnesses must have the patience of saints because I am finding it hard to sit here and listen to the tea and sympathy from the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies and Senators. They are all saying what great work school secretaries and caretakers do. A commitment is required here today from those Deputies and Senators to go and demand of higher-ups in the political parties they represent that this will be resolved.

In regard to caretakers, when I was teaching I worked with a caretaker to build an outside garden with some of the students. He did all the woodwork. For stand up week for LGBT, it is the caretakers who put up the flags and all of that. They get involved in the life of the school. I am shocked and horrified that they are still in this position. I would have hoped it would be resolved.

The secretaries do crucial work, talking to parents, management, teachers and students. It is disgraceful that the skills that are required and the work they do have been historically undervalued. That includes the remark that they are women looking for work-life balance. That can feed into a stereotype of pin money and that kind of thing that is in people's heads. Maybe Mr. Pike could comment on this idea of causing contagion. What is the problem with contagion? These people should be public sector workers.

Is there any legal recourse that could be taken as well as the strike action? Has Fórsa looked into that? It seems highly discriminatory that there is recognition for a clerical officer but not actually pension recognition.

Lastly, because I want to give Mr. Pike a chance to answer these questions, while it is great that the Minister wants to resolve this issue, I am sure Fórsa has seen all this sympathy before. Has Fórsa considered approaching the other unions? I have been on strike as a teacher. Inter-union and picket-line solidarity has broken down over a long time. We need that kind of solidarity. Would the other unions come out and support the secretaries and the caretakers for that day? Is that something that could be looked at?

Mr. Andy Pike:

In response to the previous questions from Senator Conway, we are very grateful for the support of Independent Senators and TDs, including the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, who is a close acquaintance of Ms Carty and from the same part of the world.

In relation to discussions with other trade unions, we are going to talk to the INTO, the TUI and ASTI formally about arrangements for the strike, which commences on 28 August. We have not yet had any formal discussions with them. Our position is we cannot advise them what they should do. It is up to them to advise their own members. All we can say to them is that where a secretary and-or a caretaker is standing outside their school picketing, it is an official picket. Where that happens, if you are a member of a trade union, and the school sector is heavily unionised, as members will know, it is an individual decision whether to cross a picket line or not. We are not issuing any request. We will operate within the confines of the Industrial Relations Act 1990 as well. Only workers who have been balloted for a strike under that legislation can take strike action.

We have thought this through. We are at the end of the road with begging, pleading, writing nice letters and petitioning. We have done all that. There is no other option. We have thought long and hard about this and we think our members deserve the opportunity to fight for fair treatment. They have been begging for too long. There is now a sufficient number of them in the union that this industrial action will be effective. Yes, there will be disruption. That is unfortunate. The disruption is the fault of those who have not allowed them into the public service pay system.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I am delighted to have the witnesses here today. People may not know but I am a member of Fórsa. I was in the school completion programme branch for a very long time. I was delighted to be at the Fórsa education conference at the Easter break.

We in the Social Democrats fully support this strike action. We need to be very clear here. There will be huge disruption but that is the point of a strike. If it is not disruptive, then there is no point. People need to know that strike action is the end of the road. Anyone who has been in a union knows that when you take strike action it is the last resort. Nobody wants to do that. Certainly nobody working in a school wants to take strike action. They do not because it means that nothing else is working. It is not right that we have this situation. I have heard today about the pay disparity between ETB staff and non-ETB staff. That is unacceptable.

I am quite annoyed. I will try to calm down a little bit, but it is just so infuriating that throughout my working life, the most vulnerable staff members in the education system have constantly had to fight for what is a basic right. A pension is not a gift; it is a right. People should be protected in employment contracts and should not have to sign on over the summer months. For some people, and I have experience of this, it is an absolute nightmare to sign on over the summer, particularly if a person is jointly assessed with somebody else. He or she may not get anything. That affects later pension contributions from the State. Anything we can do to support the witnesses, we will do.

Is there anything our witnesses would like to say? I do not have a question; I am just delighted they are here. I am thankful to Deputy O'Rourke for suggesting this, and we will write. Is there anything our witnesses would like to say here? I am happy to give that time.

Mr. Andy Pike:

I thank the Deputy. I will respond to a question Deputy Coppinger asked. We have looked at the legal issues here. There are some stark legal problems the employer side, the Department, would have. Our difficulty is that the last case on pensions brought by a union in the schools' sector was the Mary Boyle case, and the Department of education simply appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court. Therefore, for those members we have who are within five years of retirement, the legal route is not going to be helpful. The Department could string out a legal case for ten years. The Boyle case took that long to reach a final conclusion.

In response to Deputy Jen Cummins's question as to what we would ask the committee, I would say the support is really welcomed by all our members. If we consider a caretaker in a school, the school might employ 50 teachers and 20 SNAs, but there is going to be only one person in that workplace involved in this strike. It is a really brave thing for our members to say they are going to do this. Please keep up that level of support.

Ms Luisa Carty:

I thank everybody for their support, which is greatly appreciated by all school secretaries and caretakers. It is invaluable to us. Hopefully, we go places with this. We want to go all the way.

Mr. David Hearne:

We do not want to go on strike. The start of the school year is just as important to us as it is to parents and new students coming in. It is a chance for us to meet the students who are coming into our lives for the next eight years. They are coming into the school’s life for eight years. We get to know them from little tots to lads who are nearly as tall as me, and I am 6 ft 4 in. The school is a massive part of our lives and we go above and beyond for it but unfortunately we are forgotten by the Government. We are waiting three years for our pay to be sorted, never mind the pension. Here we are in 2025 sitting in front of this committee still looking for equality in the workplace.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Currie has four minutes.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry for arriving late, but I had another meeting this morning. I do not want to be one of those people who asks the witnesses things they have already been asked. I completely agree with our witnesses that secretaries and caretakers, by the very nature of the work they do, do not want to be in this position or to put parents or schools in this position.

Like many parents, I am on a first name terms with our school secretary and caretaker. I have our school secretary’s number in my phone. In many ways, she is the face of our school. She provides not only all of the practical support but looks after a growing list of responsibilities, and provides emotional support to students. I am very grateful for that. This is going on far too long, and I take the point about the industrial relations structure and that it seems to be about delay.

Our witnesses are looking for action today and it is the very least they deserve. They have my support and that of my colleagues and this committee. If the witnesses could recap for me their engagement with the Department thus far, that would help.

Mr. Andy Pike:

A recap on the engagement will be quick. There has not been any yet. There may be in future, but there has not been any yet. We have written to the Department of Education and Youth stating we are available for face to face discussions on the basis that members will be admitted to the single public service pension scheme. We are not necessarily prepared to go through endless discussions where, at the end of the day, the Department of public expenditure and reform says no. We need a commitment that the basis of the talks will be the how and when secretaries and caretakers will be admitted to the scheme because from that flows the benefits of public service status that are enjoyed, and have been for many years, by teachers and SNAs.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Pike.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am the last in this round of speakers. Afterwards I am going to go back down to the list. Members might get 30 seconds each to pose additional questions. We will group them and we will give the last word to our guests from Fórsa.

I was a primary school teacher for 15 years. We placed huge value on our school secretary and caretaker. The school would not have functioned with them. As teachers, we operate in a silo. Once a teacher has that morning coffee at quarter to nine, he or she is in the classroom until the break and then back in again. The constant person in the school who the public interfaces with as they came through the door is the secretary as well as the caretaker who does everything from hanging pictures and notice boards to cleaning and setting out pitches. They both do invaluable work.

Like others, I come from a position of huge support but I wish to troubleshoot a few things that do not sit quite right in my head. It is not good to generalise but as Deputy Dempsey said earlier, rightly, most secretaries - at least in my experience locally - seem to be female while most caretakers seem to be male. That is just how it seems to pan out. The other point I wish to make about caretakers is that many of them seem to be older - again, in my experience locally - although it is great to see that Mr. Hearne is a young man. By migrating them over to becoming public servants might we have the unintended consequence of making many of them redundant? I can think of several local caretakers over the age of 70 years. They would have to retire if they were public servants. Many of these men have already retired from a previous forms of work. They are pensioned. This is a top-up income. They do a superb job, but they could lose their pension by migrating over to this.

The third point I wish to make is that because of the ancillary grant schools used for taking on caretakers, I know of many local schools who contracted in the local person who does lawns, hedges, etc. He is able to do his own work and work in the school for eight or ten hours a day. There are bigger schools where this is every day of the week and every hour of the day, but I am talking about rural schools.

This is campaign has huge support but are there unintended consequences that mean some of Fórsa’s members, by virtue this campaign, could be knocked out of the employment realm?

Mr. Andy Pike:

We looked at those issues long before we started to ballot members and campaign. If a caretaker needs to stay on his or her current terms and conditions for whatever reason, he or she would be able to. What happened with the school secretary pay agreement was that secretaries were given the option of taking those terms, and 80% of them did because they worked out it was beneficial. Some 20% did not for whatever reason. When a similar agreement is finalised for caretakers, they will be able to weigh up the pros and cons and the benefits of moving across. They will be able to stay on their existing terms and conditions if they wish to. They would not automatically have to retire when they reach the age of 70. They could stay on their local contract.

If they move across into a new pay arrangement with access to the pension and they already have a pension from previous public sector employment, perhaps in An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces or some other occupation, the normal rules on pension abatement would apply. They would not lose their existing pension. They would be able to continue to make contributions to the public service scheme up to the limit that applies to all public servants. They would not lose their existing pension. The normal rules on abatement, if one already has a pension, would apply.

We do not necessarily see any disruption in the labour market due to making this change, and that is solely because there needs to be an option for a caretaker to accept a new contract with these terms or to say that he or she is happy staying as he or she is.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I hope Fórsa will not have to strike and some deal is struck between now and then. However, if it does get to a point in late August where the strike is inevitable, will Fórsa in communiques to its members explain that?

I have had some of them onto me anxious about that unintended consequence. Of course everyone wants better pay and conditions. They should be made aware that the position Fórsa seeks to negotiate is to protect those over the age of 70 who have already retired from another form of employment, or have taken on other contractual work in the community.

That concludes the main body of questioning. I going to move down through members. We are going to group these and reset our clock to 30 seconds. I will start with Deputy Emer Currie.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for their contributions. They have covered everything in depth. I will raise the matter with the Minister and look for action on their behalf.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I do not have a question, but I want to highlight some of our frustrations. The Minister for public expenditure will be before the Dáil for oral questions next week. I submitted a question specifically around the engagement with Fórsa on this issue. It has been rejected and diverted to the Minister for Education and Youth. That is part of the frustration at this end.

Some of the witnesses will know Teresa, who is the secretary in the school that my children go to. She has been out on this issue. She has been in the job for 27 years and is incredible. It is totally unjust and unfair. When our kids are learning their letters, they say that "B is for Bernard". Who is Bernard? He is the caretaker. That just happens organically and naturally because he is at the heart of everything in the school. That is replicated across the country.

Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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As my colleague, Deputy Currie, has said, we will be bringing this to the attention of the relevant Ministers. We did not need to be reminded before today that we would have to do that, but I thank the witnesses for their engagement thus far. They have thrown a light on an area that needed it.

Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)
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I reiterate what my colleagues have said. I thank the witnesses for coming in. I found it informative. We will be following up on this and I wish them good luck.

Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for coming here and I pledge my support for them. We will do anything we can to push this issue forward. I hope it is resolved before it leads to a strike. That is the last thing people want, but I understand why they would do it.

Joe Conway (Independent)
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I have nothing further to add only to wish the people in Fórsa the very best in their mighty efforts to get these anomalies and unfairnesses dealt with by the Department of public expenditure.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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I thank the representatives from Fórsa for coming and I wish them all the best with the campaign. They might consider a leaflet for the picket line that explains the issue to parents. I am sure that Fórsa has already thought of this, but I am mentioning it just in case it has not. Parents could then put pressure on their TDs and it could broaden the issue out. Fórsa might also consider a policy of no representatives from Government parties taking selfies on the picket line, which is another thing I see happening. I wish them the best of luck with the campaign.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I wish the witnesses the best of luck. I hope it does not get to strike action, but in another way I hope it does because I think enough is enough. There is a point where people have tried everything they can and if this where it has to go, it is where it has to go. I do not want that for the witnesses and I know they do not want it either. However, it does need to be highlighted. I am glad that people here have heard what the witnesses have said and will go back and raise the issue with their colleagues. We will not only raise it as a committee, but also as individuals. The more pressure we can put on, the better. I wish the witnesses the best of luck and thank them for their contributions

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. In their wrap-up, could they illustrate how secretaries and caretakers struggle to access basic things like mortgages and health insurance? While everyone has financial constraints, their colleague down the corridor at least has the knowledge that they have a pay cheque coming in every fortnight. Could the witnesses illustrate some of the constraints and tight situations their colleagues are facing?

Mr. Andy Pike:

The biggest problem over the years has been the lay-off when schools are closed. When schools are closed, many secretaries and caretakers are laid off. They get no pay from the school. They have to go to the Department of social protection to get jobseeker's benefit if they are entitled to it. This creates a lot of uncertainty and precarious employment. The lack of respect and dignity has also been a huge problem.

Ms Luisa Carty:

Until we got moved over to the Department payroll, we had just that. You could not apply for a mortgage, a car loan or any of the normal everyday necessities. You were signing on over the summer holidays and different breaks. Some people who were on a widow's pension because someone belonging to them had died could not get anything during the breaks. They were losing money in that sense.

Mr. David Hearne:

From the financial side of things with caretakers, the day-to-day necessities are covered, but we cannot afford the little extras that we might enjoy on the weekend. It is as simple as that. I am paying a mortgage. I am lucky enough that my wife is teacher. She works in the same school. She does around a 30-hour week, but still comes out with over €250 extra than me. She does amazing work. All teachers do. I am not taking that from them. They work they do in school is amazing, but yet we work 40-hour weeks and at the end of it what do we have to show for it? The mental distress it is putting on caretakers and secretaries is phenomenal. We set up a Telegram group over the past six months. The caretakers who come on are seriously distressed. They do not know where they will go for the next loaf of bread. In the wintertime, how are they going to turn on the light or the heating? We want to get rid of that anxiety. We want equality in the workplace, with everyone on the same flow. We want to be looked after. Caretakers look after the school community, but the Department does not want to take care of us.

Ms Luisa Carty:

Our retirement is equally as important as everyone else's retirement. We give the time to our schools and should be rewarded in the same way as our colleagues. We should not be the only ones who are left out.

Mr. Andy Pike:

David came up with this quote at our conference:

It is a reflection on what happens on your last day of employment in the school. On your last day of employment, you would see the teacher and the SNA retire with a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates, good wishes and an appropriate public service pension based on their years of work. They walk out with their lump sum and access their pension.

When a caretaker or a secretary retire in that same school, the only thing they get is a bunch of flowers and a bottle of whiskey if they are lucky. They get nothing else.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Just before we conclude things, we had a proposal from Deputy Darren O'Rourke, which our committee has agreed to. Arising from Senator Tully's questions about the ETBs and the responses from the witnesses, can we get agreement to find out from the Department of public expenditure the history of how this arrangement - the disparity between those on ETB central contracts and those on local school or board contracts - came about? Is there agreement that those two actions be followed up by the secretariat and that the correspondence be circulated to all members? Is that agreed? Agreed.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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We do not need the historical reasons for it, although it would be good to put it into context; we need to know what the Department is going to do to rectify it.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is Deputy O'Rourke's proposal. Absolutely. On behalf of the entire committee, I warmly thank the witnesses for attending today. I also thank their colleagues in the Public Gallery and the many more who have watched from home for their engagement with the committee. We will now briefly suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses for the next session to take their seats. Is that agreed? Agreed.