Ruane asked to help in class row

Nipsa plans to continue strike action on Monday

The education minister is being asked to intervene again in the classroom assistants' dispute which is escalate into an indefinite strike from Monday.

The assembly's education committee is to write to Catriona Ruane urgently asking her to use her influence to end the dispute as soon as possible.

Three unions have agreed to put an offer to their members.

However, Nipsa has opted out and plans to continue strike action on Monday following a three-day strike this week.

The union's John Corey said it was committed to finding a solution and is ready to do so.

'Difficulty'

"We all have a responsibility to sort out this dispute and get schools back to normal," he said.

"I'm ready to sort it out, my difficulty is getting some of these public servants in the board or in the department to take on the responsibility and engage with us to do that."

Unions were last week offered a one-off £15m payment to compensate for a change in the way salaries are calculated.

They said that could mean £2,500 for each assistant. However, Nipsa said the offer did not go far enough.

The sticking point in the dispute is the change in the number of hours that assistants have to work to get a full salary.

Some of the unions involved admit that if classroom assistants are treated as a special case, other job sectors could take legal action claiming unequal treatment.