Derry Sinn Féin MLA Delargy welcomes pay deal for educational support staff

The Foyle MLA said: “It’s great news that unions and the Education Authority have reached an agreement to pay educational support staff a fair wage.

“This follows positive engagement between the finance and education ministers who worked constructively to find a resolution to this matter.

“Support staff in our schools are a vital pillar to ensuring our children and young people have a first-class education and the very best start to life.

“All our public sector workers deserve to have fair pay and good working conditions.”

This comes after Education Minister Paul Givan welcomed confirmation from support staff unions of their acceptance of the Pay and Grading Agreement following consultation with their membership.

The Minister said: “I am pleased to be able to confirm that all the education support staff unions have accepted the proposed agreement to resolve this long running pay and grading dispute.”

He continued: “The resolution of this dispute will provide relief to our school support staff who will appreciate the benefits of this significant investment in pay. They deserve to be paid appropriately for the extremely important work they do, and the restructured pay scales will also improve the recruitment and retention of staff in the future. I welcome that all forms of industrial action have now ceased.”

The support staff unions, GMB, NIPSA, UNISON and Unite the Union have all agreed to accept the settlement terms following individual consultations over the summer months.