Staff working in the school completion programme (SCP) should be transferred to education training boards (ETB) or the child and family agency Tusla to underpin governance and give national leadership to the service, according to Fórsa.

Fórsa has repeated its call for a common set of pay and conditions for staff working in education centres. In a recent submission to an Oireachtas education committee investigation into issues affecting non-teaching education staff, the union said the workers were employed on a range of salary scales and were not treated as public servants despite providing “key services to public servants.”

Special needs assistants (SNAs) should be allowed to serve on school management boards alongside their teaching colleagues, according to Fórsa. The union has criticised current legal arrangements that allow the election of teachers and community representatives to boards, but leave out other school staff.

Fórsa has highlighted the very wide range of duties carried out by school secretaries in a submission to an Oireachtas education committee investigation into issues affecting non-teaching education staff. 

The underlying assumptions of the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) need to be reviewed to take account of lost spending power, recent and projected growth rates, and pay movements in the wider economy, according to Fórsa. 

Disability rights minister Finian McGrath will help launch Fórsa’s new Disability Rights Network in the union’s office at Nerney’s Court, Dublin on Saturday 6th April.

Poverty among working lone parents has more than doubled in five years, according to a new study by the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP).