Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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387. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills for an update on the communication made with a union (details supplied) regarding the proposed strike action being taken by all school secretaries in the next academic year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35930/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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School secretaries are at the heart of the school and are the key interface between students, parents, school leaders and other staff. Without them, our schools would be unsustainable. In supporting these vital school staff members, we also support the school community as a whole.

Since September 2023 my department has been providing a payroll service for former grant funded school secretaries. This happened on foot of an agreement reached in 2022, under the auspices of the WRC, that secretaries would move to a centralised pay roll managed by the Department and receive new terms and conditions of employment. These included a pay scale aligned with that of Grade III/CO in ETBs, improved annual leave entitlements, improved maternity provisions and paid sick leave in excess of the statutory requirement.

I acknowledge that Forsa are looking to further improve terms and conditions for secretaries and caretakers and recognise that for them, public service status and access to a public service pension is understandably an important objective. The full, comprehensive cost of pension parity requires detailed analysis and information has been provided to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to assist in this regard.

The issue of public service status is complex and needs to have regard to the state of the public finances and the repercussive effects of any such proposals for other grant-funded groups of non-public servants. For those reasons, any proposals must be considered in detail by my own officials and those in Department and the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation as the granting or otherwise of public servant status is not within the scope of this Department.

My department has received formal notification from FÓRSA about the results of their recent ballot and are currently considering that correspondence. As the Deputy will appreciate, industrial relations matters involve detailed and complex work with all stakeholders on sensitive issues in order to engage meaningfully and it would be inappropriate for me to comment further outside of that engagement process.