Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter on the floor of the House. I will pass on the argument and case he has made to the Minister for Education. As I said, there have been significant advancements, as I think we would all recognise. I laid them out in my earlier reply as well. The implementation of revised salary and annual leave entitlements for school secretaries in the February 2022 agreement is now fully operational and lessons learned from that process are now playing a key role in the drafting and implementation of a similar deal to be offered to grant-funded school caretakers. The Minister's officials are also continuing to engage with Fórsa and remain committed to the ongoing process.

In the normal course, there are ongoing discussions with the public service unions on any and all matters relating to pay agreements. Any review of changes to the employment of school caretakers or other pay mechanisms can occur only under those processes and any such proposals would need to be considered in detail by the Department of public expenditure, as I said.

The reply also refers to the work being undertaken by the Department of, and Minister for, Social Protection on the development of an auto-enrolment pension scheme, which the Deputy will be aware of.

The substance of the Deputy matter relates to the request for public service status for school secretaries and access to a pension. That is not in place at the moment but there have been significant advances on other matters of importance to school secretaries. The matter on which the Deputy advocates is an outstanding ask on which the Department is engaging. It will be a matter of further engagement with the Department of Education and also across government because of its implications for other similar categories. I thank the Deputy. I will pass on his advocacy in the Dáil this evening on behalf of school secretaries to the Minister.

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