The head of the union’s Local Government and Local Services, and Municipal Employees’ divisions, Richy Carrothers, has written to the Local Government Management Authority (LGMA) seeking immediate engagement on measures to support workers, as the fuel crisis continues to bite. 

In the letter Richy welcomed the “proactive steps” taken by the sector but underlined the “immediate and profound difficulties workers are experiencing due to skyrocketing fuel costs.” 

Noting that it is increasingly difficult for workers to get to work, he outlined a range of measures the union is calling for to counteract this. 

These measures include increased application of remote working, emergency suspension of the provisions in the travel and subsistence circulars which move travelling officers into the lower band rates, and exploration of relief measures to offset the unsustainable cost of getting to work when 'in-office' attendance is required. 

Speaking about the need for swift action, Richy said: “The pressure on workers keeps on rising. Spiralling fuel costs, on top of a cost-of-living crisis, have put many members under very real pressure.” 

“Where possible, employers should make it easier for people to work remotely to reduce travel costs, and travelling officers shouldn’t be penalised when they have no choice but to undertake significant journeys for work. We’re urging the LGMA to treat this issue as a priority and meet with us as soon as possible.” 

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa.

As Trade Union Week is almost upon us, Fórsa is calling on all members to share photos of their workplace events next week. 

You can send us your photos via email at photos@forsa.ie or on WhatsApp at 087 188 2589 and we will share as many as we can on our social media. You can also share on your own social media using the hashtag #TradeUnionWeek.  

This year’s Trade Union Week promises to be the biggest yet. Branches have confirmed over 130 events planned in workplaces across the country, a new record for participation. 

The week begins this coming Monday 27th April, and will come to a close on May Day, Friday 1st May, when we have a big day planned, including a screening of a new documentary on James Connolly, followed by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions annual May Day march and a gig afterwards. 

Encouraging members to send in photos Kate O’Sullivan, Fórsa’s director of digital, said: “Every year we get photos in from our members, and it’s great to see and share how everyone comes together to celebrate Trade Union Week.” 

“I can’t wait to see what members get up to this year. Send in your photos and let’s show how active our members are in their workplaces.” 

Email your photos to photos@forsa.ie or on whatsapp us at 087 188 2589  

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa. 

Registration has now opened for the Skills Academy's May courses.  

Branch Treasurers training - Thursday 7th May - Nerney’s Court, Dublin  

Becoming Branch Treasurer can be an overwhelming experience. It is a role that comes with a very important set of duties and responsibilities that can be difficult to pick up on the job. This training is open to Treasurers and Vice-Treasurers so they can hit the ground running, know what to do and when to do it. 

Due to the popularity of the course, a second Nerney’s Court date is available later in May, on Thursday 21st of the month. 

Keep your branch’s finances healthy and save yourself time and stress.

Fórsa Induction - Wednesday 13th May - Online - Open to all new members    

A short welcome session for new members. Fórsa induction will peel back some of the mystery of how we work as a union and how you can become more engaged, have your voice heard locally, and raise issues at divisional and national levels.    

There are morning and evening sessions available to fit your schedule. So, if you’re a new member, wondering what you’ve become part of, or looking to become a union activist make sure to join this session. 

You can register for Fórsa Induction here.  

To register for a course:    

Aside from Live: Lunch & Learn and Fórsa inductions, participation on all courses requires sign off from your branch and official. To apply, contact your branch training officer or secretary if your branch does not yet have a training officer. 

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa. 

This is your final chance to register for Summer Series 2026, a practical, skills-based training where you’ll learn skills you can bring straight back to your branch and workplace. 

This year’s event is shaping up to be a focused, practical two days built around the skills Fórsa activists need to organise, communicate, and win. Places are limited, and they are filling up fast. 

On day one we’ll kick off with a shared session on Political Economy, grounding our work in the bigger picture of how power and resources are organised. 

From there, you can choose from hands-on sessions designed to strengthen your branch campaigns. On day one you can pick from: 

• Member activation 
• Branch newsletter development 
• Using research effectively in campaigning 

Day two is all about building core activist skills, with two rounds of small-group training. You’ll have the chance to take part in sessions on: 

• Media engagement 
• Lobbying 
• Public speaking 
• Power mapping 

If you’re serious about building stronger campaigns and a more active union, this is where that work starts. Talk to your branch, make the arrangements, and secure your place. 

Register here – Summer Series 2026 

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa. 

The Local Government Management Agency has published a draft ‘People Strategy’ covering the next five years. Following consultation with both the Municipal Employees’ divisional executive committee and the Local Government and Local Services divisional executive committee, as well as branches and divisional staff, the union has submitted a response to the document. 

National secretary Richy Carrothers said: “We welcome the concept of a new strategy, as we support efforts to address the retention and recruitment challenges in the sector, however it currently falls short in terms of detail and vision. Local authorities could become an employer of choice if the LGMA is willing to address the fundamental issues raised by the unions. 

“We are calling for a significant increase in staffing to ensure consistent and sustainable delivery of services to local communities across Ireland. Staff are overburdened ad overworked which has a knock-on impact on service delivery.” 

“We also want to see an end to the trend of outsourcing in local authorities. The provision of local services is a critical function of local authorities and creates a vital connection between communities and the state. Private operators simply don’t put communities first.” 

In Fórsa’s response to the strategy document, the union also called for an increased pace to the roll out of job evaluation across the sector, protection of blended work, a pilot programme of the four-day week, an appropriate AI policy for the sector, a transfer policy for the sector, and a number of further measures to ensure workers’ concerns are addressed. You can read the full document here. 

Richy concluded by saying that while the opportunity to contribute to the draft strategy was welcome, consultation cannot simply be a box ticking exercise.  He said: “For this document to have a meaningful impact, all of the areas identified require dedicated and ringfenced resources, both financial and staffing. A strategy is only worthwhile if it is backed up by the means to deliver it.”  

Fórsa represents more than 12,00 workers in local authorities including clerical, administrative, management, technical and professional staff, as well as general operative grades across the greater Dublin area.  

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa.

Trade unions stepped up engagement with Government in response to the escalating fuel crisis, with last week’s meeting of the Labour Employer Economic Forum (LEEF) marking a renewed focus on coordinated action across unions, employers and the State. The LEEF is currently Ireland’s principal national forum for dialogue between government, employers, and trade unions. 

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) used the meeting to press for both immediate relief measures and longer-term policy responses to address rising fuel and living costs. Fórsa deputy general secretary Katie Morgan was part of the delegation, which proposed targeted supports for workers, in addition to greater flexibility in remote and hybrid working to offset commuting pressures.  

The strong message from unions was that consultation must translate into practical measures that ease the burden on working households. There was also a clear warning that if engagement through the LEEF does not deliver practical outcomes, unions will be forced to consider next steps to protect members’ interests.

This has been reinforced by a strong media and public response to Fórsa’s call for “urgent remedial action” on workplace attendance during the crisis. Following coverage in the Irish Independent, the issue gained further traction across national outlets, including The Journal and a series of radio discussions on RTÉ and regional stations. 

Deputy general secretary Éamonn Donnelly spoke on RTÉ radio about the need to adopt practical solutions to the continuing uncertainty over fuel supplies and cost. He made the case for expanded remote working, where operationally feasible, as a practical and immediate tool to reduce fuel demand, ease congestion, and protect service continuity. He highlighted that this could be achieved with no loss of productivity and no additional costs to the employer. 

Discussions on remote work, and other options to address the fuel crisis, are taking place today (Friday) between Fórsa and the Department of Public Expenditure. Fórsa has continued to position hybrid working as a common-sense response to current conditions, as well as proposing emergency suspension of the provisions in the travel and subsistence circulars which move travelling officers into lower band rates, and exploration of relief measures to offset the unsustainable cost of getting to work when 'in-office' attendance is required. 

The wider implications of the crisis are also emerging across the education sector. Dr Paul Davis, writing in The Irish Times on Wednesday, warned that sustained fuel disruption could see a return to remote learning later this year, and called for urgent “energy-resilient planning” across schools and colleges to safeguard continuity. 

In aviation, uncertainty around global fuel supply continues to affect operations. Fórsa learned this week that Aer Lingus has paused the airline's intake of trainee cabin crew, alongside schedule adjustments linked to operational pressures. The developments highlight the broader economic risks associated with fuel volatility, reinforcing the need for coordinated policy responses that protect both workers and essential services. 

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa. 

Join Fórsa members, activists and staff for a special screening of We Only Want the Earth: The Life & Ideas of James Connolly on Friday, 1st May.  

Sign-up here.

Our May Day event will serve as the central gathering for the week bringing everyone together to celebrate and close out Trade Union Week 2026.  

We’ll gather at the Fórsa office (Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1) on Friday, 1st May from 4.30pm for food catered by Shaku Maku, followed by a screening of We Only Want the Earth, a documentary on James Connolly which will run from 5pm-6.30pm.     

At a time when democratic values feel increasingly fragile, this powerful documentary reclaims Connolly’s legacy and reasserts the relevance of his bold social vision for the world we inhabit today. In the film, Alan Gilsenan positions Connolly’s radical ideas and political achievements within the contemporary political landscape, as well as documenting his prominent role in the 1916 Rising.   

Following the screening, Fórsa activists are invited to head together to the national May Day march, which this year takes place under the banner 'Can You Afford to Live?'. 

This is our moment to stand visible and united in the face of issues most affecting workers today. Fórsa activists will march together, raising our voices against the crushing realities of the cost-of-living and housing crises.  

This year’s march begins at the Garden of Remembrance at 6.30pm and will kick off at 7.00pm, moving to a rally at Beresford Place, outside Liberty Hall and beside the James Connolly statue.   

After the rally, there’s also an after-party in the backroom of Cleary’s Pub (opposite Connolly Station) on Amiens Street, with the band Fizzy Orange kicking-off music from 8.30pm onwards. All are welcome to attend. 

Sign-up here to let us know if you would like to attend Fórsa's May Day Screening and gathering.

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa. 

Last week, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, released something remarkable. Not a product launch, but a policy paper. 

‘Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age’ is, in effect, Silicon Valley's attempt to write a new social contract for the age of artificial intelligence (AI). 

It calls for a four-day working week. A public wealth fund giving every citizen a stake in AI-driven growth. New taxes on automated labour to replace shrinking payroll revenues. An expanded social safety net that triggers automatically when displacement reaches critical levels. 

Read that list again. A four-day week. Public wealth funds. Robot taxes. Automatic safety nets. These are not proposals from a union manifesto. 

They come from Sam Altman, the chief executive of the world's most valuable AI company, a man whose firm is valued at over $300 billion (€254 billion) and whose technology is already reshaping how millions of people work. 

Proper engagement 

I want to be clear about two things. First, many of these proposals are worth engaging with seriously. The recognition that AI's productivity gains require a fundamentally new approach to how we share prosperity is correct. The acknowledgement that existing safety nets were designed for a different economy and will not hold is overdue. The call for an intervention of New Deal scale and ambition, evoking Roosevelt's transformation of American society in the 1930s, reflects the reality of what is coming. 

But the second thing is just as important: the messenger matters. OpenAI is proposing that society reorganise itself to absorb the speed at which OpenAI plans to develop and deploy AI. It is asking governments to build the infrastructure, fund the safety nets, and manage the social disruption that its own products will cause, while simultaneously lobbying against the regulation that might slow that disruption down. 

A public wealth fund is a far heavier political lift than sensible safety standards. And that is no coincidence: the harder the ask, the longer the delay, and the longer companies like OpenAI operate without constraint. 

There is something else missing from OpenAI's vision: workers themselves. In a 13-page document proposing a new social contract for the age of AI, the word "union" appears exactly once in a passing reference to "incentivising companies and unions to run pilots of 32-hour work weeks." That single mention, thin as it is, is still more than appears in our own government's National Digital and AI Strategy. 

Collective bargaining, the mechanism through which Roosevelt's New Deal gave workers power, through which weekends and paid leave and safe workplaces were secured, is barely a footnote. 

The original New Deal was not designed in a boardroom and handed down. It was forged under pressure from organised labour, from millions of workers who understood that economic transformation without democratic power is just a new form of control. OpenAI's version skips that part entirely. It is a social contract written by and for capital, with benefits distributed to citizens as recipients rather than earned by workers as agents of change. 

This intervention does, however, expose a gap that should alarm us in Ireland. When the most powerful technology company on the planet is acknowledging that AI requires a wholesale reinvention of industrial policy, including shorter working weeks and new mechanisms for sharing prosperity, what does it say about a government whose own strategy contains 90 actions but not a single meaningful framework for worker voice? 

When Big Tech is calling for a New Deal and our government appears to be asleep at the wheel, something has gone badly wrong. 

Consultation 

The current public service pay agreement, expiring in June, acknowledges a "leading role for the public service in embracing and adapting to developments in digitalisation." It commits unions and the employer to consultation. But we have already seen what that commitment looks like in practice. 

The HSE published its AI for Care strategy, covering imaging, clinical decision support, clinical documentation, and contact centre automation, with a stakeholder working group of over 30 organisations. Not a single one represented workers or their unions. Patients were consulted through a ‘Citizens' Jury’. Workers weren't consulted at all. As AI reshapes our economy at pace, the Irish labour movement has no intention of letting that institutional habit continue. 

Fórsa's position is straightforward. If AI delivers genuine productivity gains in our public services, workers must share in those gains. Not as a favour from employers or a concession from government, but as a right negotiated through collective bargaining. 

Reduced working time. Protected time for learning and adaptation. A genuine say in how roles evolve. Reinvestment to improve the quality of services, not just the efficiency of delivering them. And a commitment that the benefits of this transition are shared equitably, not concentrated among those who already hold the most power, while those in the most exposed and lowest-paid roles are left to absorb the disruption. 

We do not need Silicon Valley's permission to demand a new deal for Irish workers. But we do need a government that recognises the scale of what is coming, and the urgency of putting workers rather than algorithms and AI companies at the centre of the response. 

The choice is not between technological progress and fairness. It is whether we have the political foresight and courage to pursue both. 

OpenAI, of all organisations, seems to understand this. The question is whether our government does. 

This opinion piece was originally published in the Business Post on Thursday 16th April. 

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa. 

Fórsa members who find themselves in Waterford over the next two weeks may want to stop by The Index Gallery of the Waterford Central Library where ‘The War in Spain - travels in the steps of the Waterford International Brigadistas, 1936 - 1938’ photo exhibition will be taking place. 

Sponsored by Fórsa’s Waterford Health and Local Government branch, the exhibition marks 90 years since a military coup deposed the democratically elected government of Spain, launching the country into two years of bloody civil war. It opens today, Friday 24th April and runs until Wednesday 6th May. 

Through a series of black and white photos you will walk in the footsteps of the eleven brave men who left Waterford to stand up for democracy. Follow their journey as they leave the safety of Ireland to join the 15th International Brigade and take to the frontlines in the fight against fascism. 

The photos tell a story of hope, heartbreak, heroism, and the price paid for standing against a brutal regime.  

The exhibition consists of a series of landscape photographs accompanied by descriptions telling the stories of the eleven men. 

The photographs were taken by former Fórsa deputy general secretary, Eoin Ronayne, as he followed the path of the 15th International Brigade. He said: “Each location has its own story where the men came face to face with hope and loss, elation and despair”   

Eoin hopes the photographs will create a bridge between then and now. He invites you to consider what took place at each location. Almost a century later the signs of war may have faded, but in each place these men fought to defend democracy, and visitors are asked to think about how that struggle relates to the reemergence of the far-right as a global force in recent years. 

In an earlier existence as a reporter for RTE, Eoin was fortunate enough to talk to Peter O’Connor, one of the eleven. That conversation with Peter stuck with him through the years, later becoming the inspiration for the exhibition.

Eoin said: "He set me thinking about the link between those men’s foresight of what was happening to the world in the 1930s and the world of Regan and Thatcher in the 1980s, but now it seems to me their story is even more relevant today”.  

A little over three decades later Eoin began the five years of research that would go into this project. He said: “The Spanish civil war might be the most well documented war in history. The two books I had when I started have now grown to four shelves, and that’s barely a fraction of what’s out there.” 

This wealth of research has allowed Eoin to tell the story of the Waterford members of the 15th International Brigade, and to bring their fight against fascism back to prominence at a time of increasing relevance.  

The exhibition runs from Friday 24th April to Wednesday 6th May 2026 in The Index Gallery, Waterford Central Library. 

The opening will take place at 2.30pm today, Friday 24th April, with contributions from Mayor of Waterford City & County, Cllr Seamus Ryan and Dr. Emmet O’Connor, University of Ulster. 

The photo exhibition is supported by the Waterford Health and Local Government Branch of Fórsa and is a sister event to ‘Adelante – The Waterford men who fought Franco 1936 -1938,’ The Mall, Friday 1st May, 5pm - 8pm.                                                                                                   

Join a union that wins. Join Fórsa.