*Carole Linnane.
WORKLOAD and pressure will mount on small rural schools in Clare the longer industrial action from secretaries and caretakers continues with an increase in children getting sick adding a fresh headache to the mix.
With a strong sense of reluctance, school secretaries and caretakers remain on the picket line in their effort to secure parity with their teaching and SNA colleagues when it comes to public service pensions, sick and bereavement leave schemes.
Clarecastle native Carole Linnane has been the secretary of Inch National School for the past five years. She warned that small schools are feeling the pressure since strike action commenced. “Our school is a small school, they are doing okay but I can see they are beginning to fray at the seams now, calls are not being answered, kids are going to start getting sick next week that is guaranteed once they are back, there will be nobody to ring home and nobody at the door to let them in so it’s all that stuff that is going to put a school under pressure, we’re only a five-teacher school with 104 students”.
Threat of industrial action has been in the offing since before the summer holidays, she noted. “This is going on since we moved over to the Department this year, there was no talks, we voted before the holidays and they were given plenty of notice but still no engagement, it is definitely that could be sorted, hopefully it will be resolved in the next days or weeks”.
Among her roles is sorting the deliveries from the Hot School Meals Scheme, a task she has continued to carry out. “I am allowed to go into the school to do those. On Monday, I was in the school three times because we had to go out to picket, come home, do the lunches, take them out of the oven and all that, it is a lot and on Monday evening I was saying how much longer of this have we to do because it’s hard but we will keep doing it. I’ll keep doing it because the kids have to be fed, I love going into school, the kids were roaring and screaming yesterday because they hadn’t seen me, the new students in juniors don’t know who I am because I haven’t been there, even though I’m so involved in their paperwork and setting them up on the system and meeting their parents from day one, it is sad that we are missing out on all that but hopefully it won’t be for much long more”.
Support from the public is growing for their cause, Carole felt. “After Monday with the turnout at the schools and visiting the TD’s offices on Tuesday that they see this is something which is in the public eye and people want us to get a pension so hopefully it will be resolved quickly”.
Not having the same pension as her colleagues is “very bad,” she said, “because we will only have the State pension, I’d love to have something that I can start paying into, I’m only part-time hours so my pension would be tiny but I would pay into it if I had the opportunity to”.
