Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is correct that a pay rise has been offered, but this is not just about pay. It is about other issues as well and school secretaries and caretakers understandably want their employment terms and conditions to be regularised. They want to be public sector employees, like teachers and other secretaries in the public service, working in local authorities or Civil Service departments. However, we need to work out what equality means. Secretaries and clerical officers working in Departments and local authorities work year-round and only have a few weeks of annual leave. Many of those issues have to be worked out because equality must be defined in that context. As is always the case with industrial relations matters such as this one, anything we do would have to be prospective and not retrospective. If changes were retrospective, they would kick off claims from up to 100,000 other people who are not directly employed by the State but by bodies that are grant-aided by the State. The Deputy will be familiar with a similar issue that arises with supervisors on community employment schemes. The resolution can only be a prospective one but we do want to resolve this.

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