I move:—
"That the Dáil is of opinion that the position of the ex-teachers whose pensions were based on the emoluments received by them prior to the 1st April, 1920, is one of great hardship; and that legislation empowering the Minister for Finance to increase the amount payable as pension to such ex-teachers should be introduced without delay."
I am sorry I will have to inflict something more in reference to schoolmasters on Deputy Gorey before this evening is over. I bring forward the motion standing in my name because of the rather unsatisfactory way in which the position was left at the close of the debate on the Education Estimates. I must claim the indulgence of the Dáil to explain how these grievances, which this resolution is intended to remedy, arose. Up to the year 1880 there were no pensions for National Teachers. Before that time there was some system of gratuities. In that year a Pension Act was introduced and passed in the British Parliament, and a sum equal to £1,300,000 was taken from the Irish Church Surplus Fund and used as the nucleus of a Pension Fund. From time to time since there have been various Grants-in-Aid, and the Teachers themselves have contributed each year a certain proportion of their salaries to the fund. The fund is now a very valuable asset, and from that fund Teachers' pensions are paid. I would specially emphasise the fact that Teachers from that time have been contributing towards this fund. Rules for its administration were drawn up by the Treasury, and have been altered from time to time. There was a revision of the rules in 1898. In that year the maximum pension for Male Teachers was fixed at £60, and for women, I think, it was £45 or £50; I do not know the exact figure. No further revision took place for fourteen or fifteen years, although there was much agitation in the matter. In 1913 another revision of these Pension Rules took place, and in the same year the principles which underlie Civil Service pensions were introduced. I say the principles because the Pension Scheme introduced for teachers that year is different from the Civil Service scheme. Pension is based on salary. It would bear a certain proportion—one-eightieth of the salary was to be paid for each year of service up to a maximum of forty years.
That was the highest pension a teacher could get under the rules, and these rules are still in existence. That pension would be half the average salary at the time of retirement—half his average salary for the three years before his retirement. There was no provision such as is made under the Civil Service Scheme for a lump sum, and there was no provision for a gratuity to the dependents of deceased teachers. That was agreed to in 1913, and I would wish the Deputies to note that while it was agreed to in 1913, it was laid down that the rules would come into operation in October, 1914. As I say, I would wish you to remember particularly that date and that fact, and remember at the same time that the Great War broke out in August, 1914, because that fact has a very special bearing on what I want to put before you. This Scheme that was introduced in 1914 applied to all teachers who were in the service. The benefits of it, such as they were, were applicable to teachers who had retired before that date or rather to teachers who had retired since 1900, that is, 14 years before that date. If it were the fact that the pension which they had was less than half the salary which they had on retiral, they could get a higher pension. That was the fact in a great many cases. Salaries of teachers a few years ago were notoriously low. There is no need to argue that. The pensions were accordingly low. The average pension of teachers retiring up to the period when the teachers' salaries were increased was something between £40 and £50 per annum. The War came in 1914 and 1915-16-17 and '18 came along. All this time there was no increase whatsoever of the pensions to teachers. The existing Civil Servants got a bonus. The teachers in the service got the bonus Nothing whatsoever was done for the pensioners. That I should say was the case not only of the teacher-pensioners but of Civil Service pensioners—all Government pensioners. In 1920 a motion was brought forward in the British Parliament, and the Government were defeated on the motion, with the result that they were forced to bring in, or promised to bring in, a Bill to increase the pensions of teachers. In 1920 the Pensions Increases Bill was introduced in England, which applied to all Government pensioners and to all Irish teachers. That Pensioners Act provided that a certain percentage of increases should be given to the pensioners—50 per cent., I think, and 40 per cent. in cases of a pension of, say, over £100. I am not sure of the figures. I know that 50 per cent. would have applied in a great many cases to Irish teachers. There was this provision in that Act that it would not apply to any Pension Scheme or any pension paid under the Scheme which was introduced after the 4th August, 1914. In spite of the representations which were made by the Educational Department here, and by the Pension Office people here, the British Treasury at the time made a rule to the effect that the 1914 Pension Scheme was a post-war scheme for the purposes of the Act. I pointed out earlier that this Scheme, this 1914 Scheme, was actually agreed upon between the Treasury and the Irish Representatives in 1913, and it was only just an accident that the rules came into operation on the 1st October, 1914, instead of in October, 1913. The British Treasury took advantage of that accident, and ruled that the pensions on which the percentage increases would be based would not be the actual increases which they had, but the pensions which they would have if the latter revision never took place. That is, I quite recognise, rather technical. I will illustrate what it means by giving you an example. Suppose a man had a pension of £50. Under the 1914 Rules the percentage increase on that would be 50, and he would be entitled, under the Pension Increases Act, to have his pension increased to £75. When he came to apply for that they told him: "Oh, no, your pension is not £50. Under the old rules your pension would be £30. Therefore we must base your increase, not on the £50 which you have, but on the £30 which you would have, and so you are entitled to an increase of 50 per cent. on the £30; that would bring it up to £45 and you have £50 already. Therefore you get no increase." That was the system on which this Pensions Increases Act worked as applied to the Irish teachers. The number of teachers who benefited was exceedingly small, and the benefits which they received were equally small. That brought the position down to the signing of the Treaty. When the Provisional Government took over charge of Irish affairs, representations were made on behalf of these pensioners to the then Minister for Education, Mr. Finian Lynch. He was good enough to recognise, and he had no difficulty in recognising, the very great plight of these poor people, and he promised immediately that he would do his best to get what had been asked for by those who made representations on their behalf. What had been asked for was the same terms which had been given in Scotland to the pensioners in Scotland. Briefly, that was £1 of an increase for each year of service. The biggest increase a man could get would be £40. That had already been provided for teacher pensioners in Scotland. As I say, Mr. Lynch made representations to the Finance Department at the time, and several interviews took place between those who represented the claims of the pensioners and the Minister for Education. On one occasion, the 20th May, 1922, a deputation waited on Mr. Lynch, and there was present on that occasion a representative of the Minister for Finance, Mr. Bewley. I was present at the deputation, and we put before them the points which I have just mentioned and the claims of these pensioned teachers. After a delay of two months or more we got a definite statement to the effect that all that could be done would be to allow for the purpose of this Pensions Increase Act these 1914 rules to stand. In other words, that the increase would be based on the 1914 rules. We were not satisfied with that. We pointed out that it involved very many complicated calculations, and was not on the whole a fair way of increasing or giving these increases, because it worked this way: The percentage increases we held, and we do still hold, were wrong in principle to meet such cases as these. If one man had £20, say, and another man had a pension of £60, and if you take these two cases there is no doubt that the man who had £20 was the worst off, and was entitled to the biggest increase, but under the percentage basis he would get only £10, and the man who had the £60 would get £30 of an increase. We pointed out that the increase ought to be based on the service, and that each man should get a proportionate increase according to the length of his service. In any case, as I say, in May or June last year we were told that they would do a certain thing, and that that was all they would do. Of course, we had to rest more or less satisfied with that, as we could not get any more, and we were quite prepared to accept, and did all we could to get it paid.
Now, a most extraordinary thing happened. Inquiries were made at the Finance Department, at the Education Department, at the Law Department, and the Teachers' Pensions Office, and each of these Departments had the knack of saying that the whole blame for the delay rested with another Department. The fact remains that up to October of last year nothing had been done, as far as we could find out. On that occasion we approached the new Minister for Education (Professor MacNeill), who had been just then appointed. He made certain representations to the Treasury, and the result was that on November 3rd a letter was received from the then Secretary of the Ministry of Finance (Mr. O'Brien), from which the following is a quotation:—"The matter of the Pensioned Teachers' Grant was fully considered by the late Minister for Finance earlier in the year, and the Minister cannot now consent to reopen the question. Rules to give effect to the decision then arrived at are being drafted, having been delayed by legal difficulties, and the Minister hopes that it will be possible to issue them shortly." We waited for the rules, and the pensioners waited for their money. Some of them have gone to their graves in the meantime without having got anything. On December 19 I put a question down to the Minister for Finance as follows:—
To ask the Minister for Finance if it is true that the late Minister for Finance, General Michael Collins, agreed last May to give a grant to increase the inadequate pensions now paid to ex-teachers; further, will he explain the extraordinary delay which has taken place in distributing this grant, and if he is now in a position to say when these increases will be paid?
The reply to that was as follows:—
A draft of the rules to give effect to the increase asked for in May last is now before the Law Officer. It has been much delayed by reason of legal difficulties.
We are still waiting for the rules. I took the matter up with the Law Department after this, and at the end of December last I was informed that there was a legal difficulty in the way, a legal bar that had to be got over, and that immediately after the Recess the Government would bring in a Bill to remedy the matter. In the list of Bills which was distributed some time ago a Superannuation Bill figured, and I was under the impression that that referred to a Bill to give effect to the decision of the late Minister for Finance. I was therefore rather surprised at some remarks which were made by the present Minister for Finance on the occasion of the Education Debate, and that is why I put down this motion, in order that we would find out definitely and distinctly where we are with regard to the matter.
I would like to point out that this money would amount altogether, I think, to something less than £50,000 for the first year, and would be, of course, a gradually decreasing sum, according as these pensioners would drop out. I do not think it would be even that amount. It is not suggested that this should be added to the Vote. My suggestion is that it should be paid out of the proceeds of the Pension Fund. The present income of the Pension Fund is approximately £250,000 per annum. Of that sum the teachers in the service, I assume, would contribute something like £120,000. After the expenditure on pensions there was last year a surplus of some £90,000, and this year I would estimate the surplus at about £120,000. The suggestion is that the relief that is claimed for these old pensioners, who are trying to eke out an existence on an average pension of less than £50, would be payable out of this fund, a fund which they, by their contributions during their service, helped largely to establish and to build up. I will again quote the figures which I quoted on a former occasion of the number of pensioners and the amount which they are paid as pension. There are 225, we were told in a return I received from the Ministry. of these teachers who retired before 1920 having pensions of £20 per annum or under, and 1,171 with pensions between £20 and £52 a year. I think I need say no more to convince the Dáil of the necessity for making immediate and urgent provision for these pensioners. We have suggested to the Ministry that as regards distributing whatever is available for distribution that the best method is to follow that of the Scotch Education Department, that is giving a certain definite sum for each year of service given by the teacher. Distributing it on the percentage basis is not fair; it is cumbersome, and it leads to very cumbersome calculations and difficulties in administration. The other method is a much simpler one. Whatever method is adopted, the matter is extremely urgent. Twelve months and more have now gone by since a definite promise was given to do something to remedy the position of these people. I know that within the twelve months many old men and women have gone to their graves with disappointed hopes, as they got nothing, although they expected that they would get something. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us quite definitely this evening that the promises which have been made will be carried out immediately.
