Fórsa is pursuing a claim for annual leave parity for Legal Aid Board mediators, whose leave entitlements fall short of similar grades. While their pay is linked to the civil service engineer scale, their annual leave entitlement is not.

Fórsa official Seán Carabini explained that the union is seeking the annual leave entitlements of mediators be moved in line with the pay scale it is linked to. “Mediators currently have 25 days annual leave, rising to 28 after five years. Engineers have 29 days after five years and 31 days after ten,” he said.

Seán expressed frustration at the current arrangements. “I don’t understand how this situation arose. In the civil service, there is a link between grade and annual leave. There shouldn’t be a situation whereby annual leave limits for mediators should be different to any other civil servant on an engineering pay scale,” he said.