Fórsa has demanded immediate consultation on Government plans to pilot changes in funding and other arrangements for the delivery of the service, which were announced by education minister Joe McHugh last week. The union says SNAs fear the announcement could give the green light for the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and individual schools to impose new and untested arrangements without consultation.

Union representatives finally met education department officials last month to discuss the implementation of a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) recommendation, which backed Fórsa’s case for a job evaluation scheme in technological universities and institutes of technology.

Fórsa representatives will meet the Fine Gael parliamentary party this week to make the case for fair pay and pension provision for school secretaries and caretakers. The union, which has already met all the other major parties as part of its ‘save our secretaries’ campaign, will also appear at the Oireachtas joint education committee next week.

Fórsa’s membership in the education sector has increased from 10,650 to 11,770 – a rise of over 10% - over the last two years.

Fórsa backed last month’s student-led demonstrations against insufficient higher education funding.

Legislation published by the Government has confirmed its intention to limit gender pay gap reporting requirements to organisations with more than 250 employees at first. But this threshold will fall to 50 – in line with union demands – after three years.

The launch of the Fórsa Disability Rights Network takes place this Saturday (6th April) at 11am at Fórsa's Nerney's Court office. The event will be opened by Finian McGrath, the Minister of State for Disability Issues.

Fórsa is hosting a screening of the film A Silent Transformation at 6pm tomorrow (Thursday 4th April) as part of the Fórsa Insights series.