Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach and will be as brief as possible.

I agree with other speakers on the issue of disputes in the Irish Prison Service. Anecdotal evidence suggests there jas been a clear breakdown of communication between Mr. Michael Donnellan, head of the Irish Prison Service, and the Prison Officers Association. I appeal to all parties, particularly the Minister, to bring the parties together to try to make progress to resolve the difficulties.

The main reason I am standing is to highlight, in solidarity, the issues at St. Angela's College in Sligo which I have raised previously. The lecturing staff at St. Angela's College to PhD level have all the usual qualifications one would expect of lecturing staff and achieved superior educational outcomes. However, with the merger of St. Angela's College with NUI Galway, the staff are to transfer, according to proposals made by NUI management, with a lesser status than that of college lecturers in NUI Galway. This is discriminatory and elitist and there is no good reason, either regarding qualifications or educational outcomes, it should happen. Today 60 lecturers have been forced to down tools in a one-day strike to try to have the issue put on the agenda. Weeks in advance of the strike, I raised the issue here and appealed, through the Leader, for the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, to intervene. I also wrote to her. Unfortunately, at this late stage, she still has not intervened. Will the Leader send a message to her that this dispute in the north west is not of the making of the 60 lecturers in question? It is unnecessary and I am sure Labour Party Members and those from the north west will agree with me that in the transfer of responsibility from St. Angela's College in Sligo, the only NUI constituent college north of a line from Dublin to Galway, to NUI Galway we must ensure the status of the lecturers is equal to that of those lecturing within NUI Galway.While the authorities in NUI Galway have not done so to date, and they do not recognise the status of the TUI, I appeal to the Minister, through the Leader, to direct them to engage with the organised labour movement in the form of the TUI because not to do is to strip the lecturing staff of the college of their rightful representation in negotiations.