Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Deputy pressing that sense of urgency. There are approximately 1,200 CE supervisors and assistant supervisors around the country. They provide an enormous service to their communities. They open pathways to work for people, provide a social inclusion service locally for people who would not otherwise be looked after and run key local services. We need to look after them. As the Deputy has said and as I said earlier, we need to look after Tús and RSS supervisors as well. We have had quite a bit of communication with unions this year. It is being dealt with by the WRC now and we are waiting for an invitation to a conciliation process. It is important we engage in that conciliation process but there is no point in us walking into the room unless we have sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to negotiate in a realistic way with some funds.

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