The vital role of council workers in Ireland’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the future of water services, will be among the issues discussed at the annual general meeting of Fórsa’s Municipal Employees’ division, which takes place on a virtual basis at 6.00pm on Thursday 15th April.

Members who want to attend must register by midday on Friday 2nd April. You can do that by emailing the union at jodonohoe@forsa.ie.

The branch has members in Dublin City Council, Dun Laoghaire Council, Limerick City and County Council, The Technological University of Dublin, Athlone Institute of Technology, the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, and in schools and community-based employments.

Members will hear the very latest update on the union’s response to the recent Government policy paper on the future of water services: “Irish Water: Towards a national publicly-owned, regulated, water services utility.”

Peter Nolan, national secretary and head of the union’s Municipal Employees’ division, will explain to members that Fόrsa will not tolerate any compulsory conscription of council water staff to Irish Water. The meeting will also consider pay developments within the sector and the settlement of the recent dispute about school caretakers.

Fórsa had reaffirmed its position that forced transfers of local authority workers to Irish Water will not be accepted as reported in the previous bulletin. The approach was underlined at a special joint meeting of the unions’ two divisions with workers in the sector – the Local Government Division and the Municipal Employees Division – which took place earlier this month to consider Government’s recently published policy paper on the future of water services.

The president of Fórsa’s Municipal Employees division, Thomas Murtagh, who will also address the AGM, has said workers and their families were worried about the future. “Fórsa members want to stay working for the local authority,” he said.

Fórsa and other unions in the sector had previously been in discussions at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) based on a four-stranded process to address conditions of employment, the status and governance of any new water entity, constitutional protection against privatisation, and the threat to wider local government services that would follow the removal of a substantial income stream.