ETB personal assistants terms
Deputy Smyth called for better contracts, pay, holidays and pension rights for ETB personal assistants, many of whom are women approaching retirement. The Minister said he would engage with the relevant bodies, noting progress had been made for other worker groups and that he would come back to her.
I raise the plight of personal assistants across our education and training board, ETB, sector, who have the same roles and responsibilities as our very hard-working special needs assistants, SNAs.
The Minister has been instrumental in regularising their working terms and conditions but now we need to turn our attention to and focus on the same working terms and conditions, pay and holidays, for our PAs. I will tell an anecdotal story of a PA who is working in education and training board, ETB, who has been employed since 2007 and who still does not have a contract of indefinite duration, CID. After 13 years of service in the role of PA, there has been no provision for holiday pay during the summer, Easter or Christmas. They also face the humiliation of having to apply for social welfare. While they are eligible for jobseekers' allowance, they also run out of that before they return to the college in September. Those who do not have a CID also have no pension or provision for pension entitlements.
PAs have had no pay increase and I believe they have not been included in the public sector pay rise.
Comment on this
I will finish, if the Ceann Comhairle allows me. These workers are predominately women. It is important to say that there are many women who are coming up to retirement age and they will go off into the sunset with absolutely nothing. I am asking the Minister to please look at this and to review contracts of indefinite duration for them and also paid holidays, incremental pay rises and pension provisions to give them the same as SNAs. I thank the Ceann Comhairle.
Comment on this
I will engage with the relevant bodies in relation to this issue. We made progress, as the Deputy knows, in relation to school secretaries, for example. A large group of people across the country are directly involved in providing public services on behalf of the State but are not directly employed by the State. That raises the kinds of issues the Deputy has brought up, such as not being able to benefit from Building Momentum and so on. There has been some progress in the healthcare area, in particular, through the work of the WRC. I will examine it and I will come back to the Deputy, having consulted with my relevant Cabinet colleagues.