Back to the Kingdom V - a new president
by Niall Shanahan

Good morning,

 

Here's a look at what the front pages are saying today. Most Irish titles lead with news on the murder investigation in Lucan.

 

There's good news today as the Department of Education & Skills is to publish the SNA allocations today. This is a crucial development for our SNA members, and a significant improvement long sought by the union.

 

Yesterday saw a tightly run conference schedule cover a broad range of motions, including the gender pay gap, recruitment and retention challenges in health and the Civil Service, and Section 39 pay restoration, housing and Brexit.

 

RTE covered the Section 39 issue, Eamonn Donnelly and Ian McDonnell give a quick video explainer here, while the Indo ran a short piece and include a photo of Yvette Kelly of Fórsa who addressed conference yesterday on the issue of new entrants pay. The Indo also covers a motion from the Probation Officers branch, which is proposing time-off for workers who suffer from severe period pain.

 

The Irish Examiner picked up on the discussion yesterday about basic income, debated in a motion from the Employment and Social Protection Executive Grades branch.

 

Elsewhere, Cork Institute of Technology announced the launch, earlier this week, of the Tom Bogue Memorial Scholarship Award. The €6,000 scholarship was established by Fórsa to remember the IMPACT activist, and reflect his commitment to education and social progress.

 

My colleague Hazel Gavigan has been out and about the conference venue, picking up on the issues, colour and atmosphere of our first national conference. Owing to a few technical problems the midnight oil burned too low for us to bring you Wednesday's conference video diary, but here it is for you to relive Wednesday's glorious sunshine and the Zen-like presence of President Higgins.

 

Thursday's video diary will be available here a little later this morning, and Hazel is making arrangements for a screening in the conference hall this morning.

 

We'll continue to bring you news and conference updates throughout the day on the Fórsa website, Facebook and Twitter.

 

Follow the action in real time at #fórsanc2018.

 

 

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