Positive meeting also addresses precarious employment, staffing restrictions and the public-service pay ballot
IFUT General Secretary Frank Jones, President Michael Hinds and Assistant General Secretary Robert McNamara met Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science James Lawless TD on Friday, 10 July.
The main purpose of the meeting was to press the case for permanent, structured engagement between Government, State agencies, higher education employers and the trade unions representing staff across the sector.
Higher education staff deliver teaching, research and innovation across our institutions. Yet there is no permanent forum through which their representatives can engage collectively with Government at a sufficiently high level on the major decisions shaping the sector.
IFUT told the Minister that this must change.
Important policies on funding, workforce planning, research careers, artificial intelligence, academic freedom and the future organisation of higher education should not be developed without meaningful input from the staff expected to deliver them.
IFUT proposed the establishment of a Higher and Tertiary Education Sectoral Stakeholder Forum. The forum would bring together the Department, relevant State agencies, employers, students and the trade unions representing staff.
It would not replace collective bargaining or existing industrial-relations procedures. Its purpose would be to ensure that staff have a direct voice in the strategic decisions affecting their work and the future of the sector.
The Minister responded positively and invited IFUT to submit a formal proposal setting out how such a forum could operate. IFUT has now prepared a detailed framework for consideration.
The meeting also provided an opportunity to raise the continuing problem of precarious employment across higher education.
IFUT outlined the union’s work on behalf of precariously employed staff, including the opportunities available through the local-bargaining process, and stressed the need for practical measures to support more secure and sustainable careers.
The union also raised the Employment Control Framework. IFUT’s position is clear: a system that restricts permanent recruitment while institutions continue to rely on fixed-term, part-time and insecure employment contributes to precarity, staff shortages and excessive workloads. The framework must be removed or fundamentally changed.
Although public-service pay was not the primary subject of the meeting, IFUT also advised the Minister, in advance of the union’s public announcement, that the Executive Committee had unanimously decided to prepare a ballot of affected members for industrial action, up to and including strike action.
That decision followed the expiry of the Public Service Agreement without a successor agreement, an agreed pay settlement for the remainder of 2026 or a credible negotiating process.
IFUT General Secretary Frank Jones said:
“This was a positive and constructive meeting. We made the case that engagement with staff cannot begin after policies have already been decided. The people who teach, research and sustain higher education must have a meaningful voice when those decisions are being developed.
“The Minister’s invitation to submit a proposal for a permanent sectoral forum gives us an important opportunity to establish a stronger and more consistent form of engagement across higher education.
“We also made clear that engagement must lead to progress. That includes addressing precarious employment, reforming the Employment Control Framework and engaging seriously on public-service pay.”
IFUT will now progress the proposal for a permanent sectoral forum and continue pressing Government for action on the issues raised at the meeting.