Secretaries and caretakers protesting outside TD John Lahart’s office on Tuesday
‘Disheartening’ for school secretaries and caretakers
“It’s disheartening and degrading,” said a Balrothery school secretary taking part in the ongoing protest for equal pension rights for school staff.
While working day by day alongside teachers and principals, school secretaries and school caretakers are still excluded from secure retirement options as they are not conferred public service status.
Over the summer, Forsa trade union has called for an indefinite strike that started on Thursday, August 28, outside the Department of Public Expenditure saying this is a “calculated policy decision to maintain inequality.”
From Monday, September 1, Fórsa members have also placed pickets on schools nationwide.
The strike has been backed by 98 percent of Fórsa’s school secretary and caretaker members, including Nicola McGaharan, a secretary at St Joseph Special School in Tallaght.
“We work in a public building, shoulder to shoulder to other staff who get the benefits of it,” she said.
“We don’t get bereavement days, we don’t get their same sick days. Yet, we’re told that we hold the schools together, and that they would fall apart without us.
“We’re asking for pension parity, literally just what we deserve.”
Over 100 years experience in one photo and not a pension in sight as secretaries and caretakers protest outside TD John Lahart’s office in Tallaght
Nicola has been taking part in the strike with St Joseph’s caretaker, Ronan Lynch, who has worked in the school for 13 years.
She knows of secretaries in other Tallaght schools who have filled the role for 20 years and are still in the same situation.
“We’re out and fighting and this is an indefinite action. It could be weeks or months, but it will be a hazard for the upkeep of the school.
“Without us, the letters to parents won’t be sent, the bins won’t be emptied.
“Each day that goes on, we get more deflated. We don’t want to be here, we would only like to be back to school seeing our students again and meeting the new pupils.”
Nicola explained that especially in a special education school like St Joseph, she is the “first point of contact” to reassure parents that their kids are going to be safe when they’re in.
Fórsa represents more than 2,800 school secretaries and caretakers nationwide.
While the 2023 agreement between Fórsa and the Department of Education brought school secretaries onto the centralised public payroll, and delivered substantial pay improvements, they remain excluded from the Single Public Service Pension Scheme. They are also denied key entitlements including occupational sick pay and bereavement leave.
Caretakers, meanwhile, are still awaiting implementation of a comparable pay deal, three years after the original agreement was signed. Many remain on €13 an hour, a rate that has not changed since 2019.
Fórsa’s head of Education, Andy Pike, said, “Our members have waited long enough. That’s why they’ve voted overwhelmingly to strike, and to picket the very department that continues to block progress,” he said.
“What’s at stake is fairness. It’s about the school secretary or caretaker who, after 40 years of service, retires with nothing while their school colleagues leave with a secure pension. It’s about a worker diagnosed with cancer being denied the basic sick pay protections afforded to every other school staff member.”
Mr Pike added that there is no justifiable objective reason for their exclusion.
Engagement at the WRC on Wednesday, August 27, concluded without any outcome.
The Department of Education did not at any point outline to Fórsa its position on the request to admit secretaries and caretakers into the public service pension scheme.
The WRC then informed Fórsa that same evening that they had concluded that the gap between the two parties is too far apart for any resolution at this point in time.
