Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I fully understand the issue the Deputy has raised. The ask is that there would be access to a single public service pension scheme. That is something that needs to be resolved through the industrial relations processes. We have made progress in respect of the salary side and the payroll aspect of this. Since September 2023 the Department has been providing a payroll service for formerly grant-funded school secretaries. Currently 85% of school secretaries have opted for the new package and are on the Department’s payroll. That happened on foot of an agreement arrived at in the WRC in 2022. Until then, they had been paid directly by the schools as the employer. There has been progress made on the school secretaries front compared with where we were. As regards the pension issue, these are not easy issues to resolve overnight but it is something on which we will engage with the union.

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