I thank the Deputy for raising an important issue in respect of our commitment to adult literacy, adult education and the importance of ensuring high quality resources are available to enable us to achieve the objectives we have set in respect of adult education and literacy more generally. Some 3,300 adult education tutors are employed across the 16 ETBs. There is no specific public sector grade, as the Deputy has said, for adult education tutors. They are paid on the basis of an hourly rate and, as the Deputy said, generally at the unqualified teacher rate. Progress has been made on other issues for adult tutors. However, a claim from SIPTU and the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, to align adult education teachers to a payscale of an existing ETB grade remains unresolved.

In 2020, the Labour Court recommended that the official side make an offer and a joint proposal has been prepared by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, and the Department of Education, which retains regulatory responsibility for the ETB sector. That proposal is currently under discussion with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, with a view to finalising an offer to the unions at the earliest opportunity.

Progress has been made in the regularisation of the adult education tutors with the introduction in 2017 of a consistent method for awarding contracts of indefinite duration across ETBs, and the provision in 2019 of access to leave schemes, paid leave and the appropriate public sector pension scheme. While the Labour Court recommended in March 2020 that the official side make an offer on the issue of a payscale alignment, it accepted that, having regard to the contrasting nature of the roles, qualifications, flexibility and regulatory frameworks involved, any offer could not involve alignment with the teachers' scale. A joint proposal has been prepared with a standardised pay scale aligned with the Youthreach resource person's scale. That would apply to staff employed in ETBs to deliver further education training programmes. Those staff are currently employed under a variety of terms and conditions.

There is still work to be done on the issue. An offer will be made and no doubt there will be further discussions. Nothing here is a fait accompli. This is a matter that needs to be dealt with and resolved.

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