Employment Rights
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
============================================================

Ruairí Ó Murchú (SF), Louth

I thank the Minister. We definitely will. The stakeholders are the Department, the education and training boards, and Fórsa on behalf of the workers. This issue has been ongoing for considerable time. I took it to the Tánaiste when he was Minister for further education. An element was dealt with in that the pay rate per hour was improved. It was a considerable percentage because it was a very low base. The big thing for them was the 52-week contract. These are people who are facilitating those who have challenging or further needs to stay in the educational sector and in further education. That is an absolute requirement. In relation to the disability project, a proposal is in front of them. It is not a 52-week contract, which is the big thing. The Minister knows that issue of applying for social protection is a huge issue. He might comment on the disability project, the outworking of that and how it may facilitate both those who need the help and those who are working in a scenario that is far from perfect.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23