Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Patrick O'Donovan (FG), Limerick County

As the Deputy will appreciate, the Minister for Education is not around. Regardless of that, I agree. The concept of school secretaries and caretakers and other ancillary staff who are integral to the operation of our schools being on picket lines was, to be quite honest, very difficult. The industrial machinery of the State is the vehicle through which this issue needs to be progressed. I hope the unions and the Department will be able to enter into it in a spirit of co-operation and we do not see what we saw before. Nobody wants to see children having to walk past their school secretaries and caretakers. At the end of the day, we have to leave this issue, in the same way we would with any other industrial relations issue, to the industrial relations mechanics of the country to be able to resolve it.
I am sure, at the end of the day, that where there is a will, there is a way.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11