Leaving school secretaries and caretakers out of the Single Public Service Pension Scheme is blatantly unfair, according to Social Democrats education spokesperson Jen Cummins.<\/p>\n
Deputy Cummins said:<\/p>\n
\u201cSchool secretaries and caretakers are just as important to schools as teachers and principals – without them, our education system would not be able to function.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecretaries and caretakers are valued members of school communities who deserve parity with their colleagues when it comes to their pension.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an indictment of this government that this cohort of workers have been left with no other option than to begin an indefinite strike just to secure pension equity<\/p>\n
\u201cI met members of the school secretaries and caretakers at the last two F\u00f3rsa education conferences and in Leinster house, who have now reached the end of the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn abdication of duty by the Department of Education and the Department of Public Expenditure, who have refused to negotiate with secretaries and caretakers, has brought us to this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen contacted, each department claims that the responsibility lies with the other – this back and forth is completely unproductive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister for Education must make it her utmost priority to meet with F\u00f3rsa and engage with secretaries and caretakers\u2019 requests in a good faith manner – this has not happened up to this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an insult that the Department has yet to meet with these workers, who are simply asking to be considered equal to their peers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been a member of F\u00f3rsa all of my working life as part of the school completion programme branch – I know my colleagues there are fully supportive of this strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis situation is entirely avoidable, yet little effort has been made by the government to avoid an indefinite strike of almost 3,000 staff members who are integral to the running of our schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister must step up, open up lines of communication, and give school secretaries and caretakers the parity they deserve before this strike begins.\u201d<\/p>\n
August 14th, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leaving school secretaries and caretakers out of the Single Public Service Pension Scheme is blatantly unfair, according to Social Democrats education spokesperson Jen Cummins. Deputy Cummins said: \u201cSchool secretaries and caretakers are just as important to schools as teachers and principals – without them, our education system would not be able to function. \u201cSecretaries and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,581,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-jen-cummins","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n