Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

On the pay offer that was made, at a meeting of the Workplace Relations Commission last week, the Department repeated an offer of a previous 1.5% increase per annum which the union had previously and rightly rejected. Department officials said they could not agree to a Labour Court referral, despite a commitment made by the former Minister last year. It is not fair to tell school secretaries who are living off €12,500 a year that they should wait until the pandemic is over when they have been involved in this dispute since long before it began. That is manipulating the situation to the benefit of the State. It is unfortunate that this has been done.

Will the Minister do what her predecessor had already agreed? Will she use the mechanisms of the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court to address this issue with Fórsa? Given how valuable school secretaries are to the day-to-day running of schools, their action will have more support than we imagine. In three weeks' time, I imagine all the education spokespeople will be back here but they will be a little more vociferous in asking how such action was allowed to happen.

Will the Minister use the Workplace Relations Commission mechanisms that are already in place? The behaviour of her officials last week in the commission was unfortunate and quite insulting. It was a turning of the ship from what had already been agreed to. We need to get in front of this because the disrespect that has been shown to school secretaries, who have been asked to live off a wage none of us would ever agree to, is dismissive. I do not mean shown by the Minister personally but by the Department. I appeal to the Minister to demonstrate the leadership required to address this issue before the schools have to close.

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