Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the issue of our secretarial staff, on the back of a very powerful meeting that many of us attended at 10.30 this morning. Their starting rate of pay is €11.75 per hour. A living wage is €12.90. They have no job security. I have lost two excellent colleagues because they could not afford to keep working in the job. My current secretarial assistant, a fantastic guy, had to move back in with his parents because he cannot afford to rent.

We all know that the title of "secretarial assistant" is a complete misnomer. These people do the same jobs as parliamentary assistants but are paid dramatically less. Parliamentary assistants start on a salary of €41,000. I want to approach this on a cross-party basis because all parties had representatives on that call this morning. There is huge frustration that nothing has been done. Two years ago, we had an excellent debate in this Chamber and we all supported the motion demanding that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform meet with the representatives of these workers and engage with them properly. I mean this respectfully and not to be confrontational, but that meeting never took place and still has not taken place. The union has surveyed these workers and presented all the evidence. From what I can see, the HR department is in agreement with the union. The blockage is with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, so much so that a union representative told us that it did not even send decision-makers to the most recent talks. What is being offered to them is 3% over a year. That is a pay cut. We have inflation of 5%. All of us know that these people are not paid properly The current set-up means those workers will probably leave because there is no future for them working as secretarial assistants.