“I’M WORTH MORE than a box of chocolates,” read the sign held aloft by one worker at a rally that was attended by a huge crowd of caretakers and school secretaries who have officially gone on strike starting today.

The Fórsa trade union members are amongst 2,600 who have gone on indefinite strike after the Department of Education did not agree to starting a formal talk process on their lack of access to public sector pensions, bereavement leave, sick leave, and other entitlements that teachers and other school workers have access to.

The workers chanted “pension parity now” as they made their way from the Department of Public Expenditure to the front of the Dáíl, where the crowds heard speeches from Fórsa members, opposition leader Mary Lou McDonald, and TDs from the Labour party and the Social Democrats.

Jean Scully has been the secretary at the St. Lorcan’s Boys School in Palmerstown, Dublin, for 16 years.

She said that the decision to join the strike was “nerve-wracking” for her:

“I felt frightened, to be honest with you, but I knew I had to do it”.

Being in the thousands-strong crowd outside of the Dáil today has buoyed Scully’s resolve.

“This has been going on since the 80’s. We’ve been fighting for our rights since then, and now we are taking on the Department of Education and the Department of Public Expenditure to get the same parity of rights as Special Needs Assistants and teachers.

“We’re not treated the same. If I am out sick I don’t get paid, and that is not right in this day and age. Most of us secretaries are also mothers. We’re working and rearing our families, we deserve the same rights as other workers in the public sector, and the same securities,” she said.

Scully said that though she is fighting for her own entitlements, for her, it’s about the next generation of workers coming up behind her.

“My caretaker retired this week, and he didn’t even get the bottle of whiskey. Schools are strapped as it is. We aren’t going to get paid while we are on strike, we all have mortgages and bills to pay, but we have to do this, as scary as it is, we have to do it.

“If we don’t take a stand now we will never get what we’re owed. This isn’t for me; I’m old. It’s for those women coming up behind me, for them to have their rights,” she said. 

Speaking in front of the Dáil Phil Ní Sheaghdha, the General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the President of the of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said that the issues facing school secretaries in particular are a “mirror image” of the issues that nurses have faced working in Ireland.

“This is a mirror image of all the inequality issues that have been faced by predominantly female workforces in this country,” she said to uproarious applause.

“Colleagues, you have our support. You are doing the right thing, you have a just cause, and you have the public’s support. You heard it this morning when your general secretary was with Claire Byrne. Keep it up, don’t give in, we’re all with you,” Ní Sheaghdh further said.

Martin Walsh is the President of the Fórsa union, which represents around 100,000 workers across sectors nationwide.

Addressing the rally today he said “I promise you this, we have got your back. We’ve been fighting for this for a long time, it’s a long time coming, but as someone said this morning, we’ve been waiting for 35 years, and we will keep waiting until this strike ends”.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald told the rally: “Every single one of you gathered here is powerful, but collectively you are mighty, and with the backing of your union Fórsa, I have no doubt that those inside [the Dáil] can hear you loud and clear.”

Fórsa’s Andy Pike said that this crowd is four times the size they expected for the caretakers and school secretaries’ strike - lots of workers saying they were scared before, but that they feel determined here today. pic.twitter.com/mdRaw5yocr

— Eimer McAuley (@eimer_mcauley) August 28, 2025

School secretaries Evelynn O’Brien and Trina Hanley told The Journal that their respective schools have been very supportive of their strike action.

“We aren’t entitled to bereavement leave like everyone else in the school is, my board of management was very good to me last year when I had a bereavement and gave it to me anyway, but it’s not a given,” O’Brien said.

“We aren’t asking for anything extra; we are just asking for parity. In the three years I’ve been a secretary in my school I have been instrumental in raising over €100,000 for the school, but I get paid in beans,” Hanley said.

Seamus Bonner and Anne Boyle from the Glenties National School.

Anne Boyle and Seamus Bonner have worked as the secretary and the caretaker in the Glenties National School in County Donegal for over 30 years.

They travelled to the protest together to mark the start of their strike action.

“Our picket is just going to be us too, but everyone has been so supportive, our principal was on the phone this morning to wish us luck,” Anne said.

“It was a huge decision to make to strike,” Seamus said.

“Teachers and assistants are all entitled to these things, we’re thirty years in the job and we aren’t entitled to anything, it’s the injustice of it,” Anne chimed in.