Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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I am raising the very important issue of the position of school secretaries. Last Friday, we had the unprecedented situation of school secretaries going on strike. They had a one-hour strike that morning and went on a work to rule. They do a very important job and are the first port of call for parents. They do the administrative work for the schools. They are central to the efficient running of schools. There is a two-tier system. The minority, who are employed directly by the Department and education and training boards have Civil Service rates and conditions, while the majority are employed directly by boards of management. There are hundreds throughout the midlands, including counties Laois and Offaly.

I met some of them at the protest on Friday morning and heard them outline the very precarious situation they were in. They are on lower pay than anyone else; some of them are earning just above the minimum wage. They have to sign on during the school holidays. They are officially unemployed for 14 or 15 weeks of the year. They clock up no pension entitlements from employment. They have no real job security and many of them are on short-term contracts. They have asked me to tell the Minister of State that they believe they are being taken for granted. Without them schools would not work. Obviously, a few hundred are employed by the Department. They start on a salary of €24,000, against which I am not arguing. It is the basic starting rate for a clerical officer and low enough in itself. However, the people concerned are not earning within an ass's roar of it. Some are earning as little as €12,000. Fórsa officials have told me that there have been no meaningful negotiations on the part of the Department and no serious engagement. It is a long-standing injustice. I know that the Minister of State will support their becoming unionised because they have been picked off one by one and we need to deal with the issue.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I know that this issue predates the Minister of State's tenure and dates back to the late 1970s. I do not believe this situation would be tolerated in any other workplace or occupation. The facts are stark. About 300 or 10% of school secretaries are entitled to holiday pay, sick pay and pension entitlements. Therefore, the Department of Education and Skills is discriminating against 90% of school secretaries in State schools. It is ironic that this is taking place in cradles of learning - schools. This is very bad not only for the secretaries but also for everybody involved. Last week Fórsa organised a one-hour stoppage which was supported not only by their colleagues - the other 10% - but also by the teacher unions, parents and, most importantly, students. It is a great anomaly that amounts to pay apartheid in schools and the secretaries want the Department to address it immediately.

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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On behalf of the Minister, Deputy McHugh, I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. Deputy Stanley is right that they should be unionised. I agree that all workers should be unionised. The staff in my office are all unionised. I ask them to do this when I employ them. I recognise the very important work done by these and other support staff in the running of schools. I have spoken to a number of school secretaries about their employment conditions and understand the issues they have raised. I have met them and received correspondence.

Earlier this year the Department relaxed the moratorium for community and comprehensive and education training board, ETB, schools with an enrolment of 700, allowing them to employ additional school secretaries up to a maximum of two per school. There are 91 schools in the community and comprehensive and ETB sector that meet this criterion based on the information available to the Department. It is an initial step and has immediate effect.

Schemes were initiated in 1978 and 1979 for the employment of clerical officers and caretakers in schools. The schemes were withdrawn completely in 2008. They have been superseded by the more extensive capitation grant schemes. The current grants scheme was agreed to in the context of the Programme for Economic and Social Progress which was published in 1991.

The majority of primary and voluntary secondary schools receive assistance to provide secretarial, caretaking and cleaning services under the grant schemes. It is a matter for each individual school to decide how best to apply the grant funding to suit its particular needs. Where a school uses the grant funding for caretaking or secretarial purposes, any staff taken on to support these functions are employees of individual schools. Specific responsibility for terms of employment rests with the school.

On foot of a chairman's note to the Lansdowne Road agreement, in 2015 the Department engaged with the unions representing school secretaries and caretakers, including through an independent arbitration process. The arbitrator recommended a cumulative pay increase of 10% between 2016 and 2019 for staff and that a minimum hourly pay rate of €13 be phased in over that period. The arbitration agreement covers the period up to 31 December 2019. The arbitration agreement was designed to be of greatest benefit to lower paid secretaries and caretakers. For example, a secretary or caretaker who was paid the then minimum wage of €8.65 per hour in 2015 prior to the arbitration process has from 1 January 2019 been paid €13 per hour, which represents a 50% increase in that individual's hourly pay.

Officials from the Department attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Education and Skills on 9 April to discuss the status of non-teaching staff. In May officials from the Department had discussions with Fórsa representatives as part of a planned meeting. Fórsa took the opportunity to formally table a pay claim. It was tabled as a follow-on claim from the current pay agreement for this cohort of staff which lasts until December 2019. The Department issued surveys on 10 July to establish the full current cost of the trade union's claim. This is standard practice. Fórsa's claim will be fully considered once the current costings have been determined on completion of the survey analysis. I subscribe to the view that anybody has the right to take industrial action. We are asking that until the arbitration agreement expires in December industrial action not be taken by Fórsa members. Officials from the Department met Fórsa representatives last week.

Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I am aware of the increase of 10% that was awarded, but I question whether the majority caught in this situation as direct employees of boards of management have received it. I came across one secretary who was working in three separate schools, something she does not mind doing, but she should be on the same rates of pay. Secretaries in different schools can be on different rates of pay. They have taken on additional responsibilities such as the use of computers, extra administration work and paperwork. New grades were created in local authorities at the stroke of a pen during the boom years. New grades have also been created in the Civil Service. We need to recognise that the people in question on the front line are providing a very important service in primary and secondary schools. Negotiations held last Wednesday morning did not deliver on the issue of pay and conditions. Having to sign on during the school holidays, the lack of pension entitlements, the lack of job security and pay are the four key issues that need to be addressed. Boards of management also need to recognise their trade union, Fórsa.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Department of Education and Skills believes it would be premature to engage with the union on the stoppage that happened last week. That is slightly odd because this issue has been ongoing for 41 years. If the Minister of State was to find that a colleague of his was on higher pay for the job they were doing, it would cause him grievous mental torture. It is an odd statement for the Department of Education and Skills to make. Some 90% of school secretaries are being discriminated against, while a further 10% of their colleagues who are employed directly by the Department of Education and Skills are receiving much higher financial rewards. This issue needs to be addressed urgently or there will be further industrial action in the coming months and years.

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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As I was about to say earlier, officials from the Department met Fórsa representatives last week. Representatives of management bodies representing the employers, schools impacted on by the action, were also in attendance at the meeting, the purpose of which was to explore further the details of the pay claim as presented by Fórsa and the nature of the industrial action. The Department restated to the trade union that the claim would be fully considered once the current costings had been determined. It is standard practice for the Department to establish the full cost of a trade union's claim, including hours worked and the current rates of pay. A survey of school secretaries closed on 20 September and departmental officials are analysing the findings. They received 2,000 responses to the survey. The Department is fully committed to acting on the findings. Contrary to what might be said, it remains fully open to further dialogue with Fórsa on completion of the survey work. The Minister and I have met secretaries and do have some compassion, although perhaps that is not the word to use. I believe they work hard and should be paid for their hard work. My view which I think the Minister shares, but he will have to say so is that secretaries should not be laid off for a period. They should be in employment from the time the school opens until it closes. Further discussions with Fórsa would probably be productive.