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

Fianna Fáil has consistently voiced its support for school secretaries and caretakers. We have organised meetings with our parliamentary party and the representatives have organised briefings for the Oireachtas. Our Deputies have voiced support at public meetings across the country. The position in which secretaries and caretakers find themselves is manifestly unfair and a pathway to address it must be developed.

Secretaries employed directly by the Department of Education and Skills can earn double or even treble what is earned by those employed directly by other schools. The irony is that in the school plebiscites taking place at present, where an ETB is selected as the patron of the school, a secretary employed in that school will be a State employee with a reasonably good salary, pension rights and Civil Service terms. That is not the case if Educate Together, the Catholic Church or a Gaelscoil, not an ETB, is the patron. The situation is particularly galling in the context of the role that secretaries play in schools. They are vital for providing the Department of Education and Skills with the information it requires on a host of issues. Perhaps the Minister will address what impact the industrial action is having on the gathering of information by the Department. In some cases, it is only the secretary who has access to particular databases.

It is deeply disappointing that school secretaries have been forced to engage in industrial action. We do not wish to see it happening but it is due to the failure to engage by the Government. The Minister outlined the arbitration that started in 2015 and concludes this year but he did not clarify what else is in the arbitrator's decision, which is that the Government would engage this year with a view to putting a new arrangement in place from January 2020. That is what this debate is about. If meaningful talks were taking place between the Department and Fórsa, I doubt that Fórsa and the secretaries would have an issue.

When a strike or industrial action occurs in the private sector, one will hear Ministers pontificating that the industrial relations mechanisms of the State must be used and that they are available to all the parties. In this case, Fórsa has asked the Department to go to the WRC to discuss this, but the Minister's reply today is extremely disappointing. He says his officials are considering the matter. All Fianna Fáil is seeking is that the Minister talk to the union about this. Talks always happen. The Government appears to allow situations to fester and eventually it gives in to talks. These are talks about something it was asked to do four years ago. The Government has made the situation worse in recent days by mischaracterising the nature of the dispute and insinuating a potential cost to the State of hundreds of millions of euro per year.

The secretaries I have met on the protest - I would not even call it a picket line - are lonely voices. They are surprised and delighted to be joined by SNAs and teachers at the doors. They are brave people who, in some cases, went out alone to start a picket. I strongly urge secretaries who are not members of a trade union to join one. Fórsa is the one that is taking this action but there are other trade unions. They should join one because the secretaries who are members of a union and taking this action are fighting for their rights. It is ironic that in possibly the most heavily unionised sector in the State secretaries are a lonely voice and many are not unionised.

I think they should join a union. Our understanding is that Fórsa has asked the Minister to use the services of the Workplace Relations Commission. That needs to happen as soon as possible. If it happens, we will let the Minister have the space for it, as we always have done with industrial disputes. He should get the talking started.

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