Healy warns of renewed school disruption as secretaries and caretakers lose pension talks

Concerns over long running inequalities faced by school secretaries and caretakers have again reached the political foreground, with more than seventy schools in Tipperary affected.

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The issue forms part of a wider national dispute involving 2,600 staff who mounted industrial action in September to highlight their exclusion from pension arrangements available to other school based public service workers such as teachers and special needs assistants.

Although these staff play a central role in the day to day running of schools, they remain outside pension parity and have been campaigning to have this addressed. Their action has already resulted in significant disruption across the country and further stoppages are possible.

Tipperary TD Seamus Healy has now pressed the case directly with the Tánaiste Simon Harris and used the Dáil to underline the frustration felt by those involved.

“School secretaries and caretakers are at the heart of all school communities up and down the country and they’ve shown extraordinary patience Tánaiste.

“They agreed to suspend their strike action and enter talks at the Workplace Relations Commission on the basis of assurances that they would receive pensions comparable to other public sector workers.

“The Department of Expenditure and Education have now reneged on those assurances and have failed to engage in any meaningful way with their union Forsa.

“The talks have now broken down and schools up and down the country face further strike action and indeed closure.

“We’ve heard statement after statement from the Government and from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies in support of school caretakers and secretaries. But talk is cheap and I’m asking you today to instruct the negotiators to honour the commitments given and grant the comparable pensions to school secretaries and caretakers.”

Healy’s intervention reflects growing concern that without progress at the Workplace Relations Commission, the dispute could escalate once more, affecting schools nationwide.

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