Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have been asking for this and the WRC has mandated it. It has taken a union campaign to implement the terms mandated by the WRC. I have met the Fórsa caretakers and secretaries myself. This needs to end very soon. If a scale like those applied to teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, is not set out, any increase like the one given before will become a ceiling rather than a floor. That is a real problem. It is not fair that the secretary, who probably knows all of the children, parents and staff of a school, is often the one person without certainty about her - sometimes his - employment. I note that it is an overwhelmingly female profession. Secretaries do not have certainty. That is wrong and it needs to end. We need to bring back something similar to what pertained before and still pertains to this day in the ETB sector.

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