Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I drops my kids to school when I can and am more than aware of the value of school secretaries as I am sure are Deputy Doherty and many others in the House.

Industrial action by school secretaries who are members of the Fórsa trade union will commence tomorrow. Fórsa's pay claim is a follow-on claim from the current pay agreement which runs until the end of this year. The Department's position is that the union's claim will be fully considered once the current costs have been determined. The Department is conducting a survey of schools which closes tomorrow. Bearing that in mind, any industrial action is surely premature and unwarranted, not least because the period of the current agreement has not even expired yet. The current pay agreement committed both parties to engaging with one another in the course of 2019 to consider the nature of an agreement to apply from 1 January next year.

The Department is not the employer of the staff concerned and does not hold current information on their pay rates and working hours. A previous survey was conducted ten years ago and the current pay agreement has been implemented in the meantime. The results illustrate that this matter presents significant issues for the Exchequer with a potential cost to the State of between €188 million and €347 million per year in funding to allow for the employer pension contributions in State-funded community and voluntary organisations.

On foot of a chairman's note to the Lansdowne Road agreement, the Department of Education and Skills engaged in an arbitration process with the union in 2015. This resulted in a cumulative pay increase of 10% between 2016 and 2019 for staff and a minimum hourly pay rate of €13. This arbitration agreement lasts until the end of this year and was designed to be of greatest benefit to lower paid staff. For example, a secretary or caretaker who was paid the then-minimum wage of €8.65 per hour in 2015, prior to the arbitration, is now paid €13 per hour which is an increase of 50%.

Having said all that, my experience is that these issues get resolved by talking. I encourage Fórsa to engage with the Department to try to find a way forward that avoids industrial action, including that scheduled for tomorrow, and the disruption that will cause to children, parents and the staff of schools.

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