Dáil Éireann debate -
Monday, 7 Jun 1926

Vol. 16 No. 5

IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - VOTE 47—SECONDARY EDUCATION.

MINISTER for JUSTICE (Mr. O'Higgins)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £181,900 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1927, chun Meadhon-Oideachais, maraon le Deontas Thuarastal na Múinteoirí, Deontas Ceann-taraithe agus Méaduithe Tuarastail do Mhúinteoirí Meadhon-Scoileanna.

That a sum not exceeding £181,900 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1927, for Secondary Education, including the Teachers' Salaries Grant, Capitation Grant and Increments of Salary to Secondary School Teachers.

Mr. JOHNSON

I put certain questions to the Minister on the general Vote, and I thought possibly he might have replied to those questions. As he did not do so I assumed he was going to deal with them on the introduction to the Secondary Education Vote. I refer to questions relating to the tenure and pensions of secondary teachers. Perhaps the Minister can give the Dáil some information on this subject.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

I indicated I was not in a position to give the Dáil any further information than that already at its disposal on either of those two particular matters. The question of tenure is one in which not merely the State and the teachers are involved, but also the people who own those secondary schools and run the secondary schools, who are in a certain sense the proprietors of the secondary schools. As regards the question of tenure, I understand a certain offer was put up by the headmasters to the Association of the Secondary Teachers of Ireland allowing them in the case of, say, dismissal from diocesan schools the same appeal as exists in the case of the national schools. There is in the case of national teachers dismissed, an appeal under the Maynooth Statute. The teacher has an appeal. I am speaking of the Catholic manager. There is an appeal from the manager to the Bishop. A similar appeal was offered to the secondary teachers. In the case of religious orders of men the appeal that was offered from the headmasters was from the head of the college to the head of that particular Order. In the case of convents in most cases I think the appeal suggested would be an appeal from the head of a convent to the Bishop. The Association of Secondary Teachers were not satisfied with that particular form of appeal, and no further advance has since been made in that matter. Naturally in this as in other matters our Department would be glad if some solution of this particular problem could be found.

As regards the question of pensions, I indicated that some time ago I received a deputation from the Association of Secondary Teachers. I say in this at all events they are at one with the headmasters that in this matter they can reach agreement, namely, that there should be pensions. There was no indication even on the part of those advocating such a scheme of what amount it would be likely to cost the State, and at present, before actually putting anything up to the Minister for Finance or saying whether anything could be put up to the Minister for Finance, I should like to have rather a clear idea of the sums involved. At present we are still engaged in trying to find out, considering the age of the individual teachers who are registered, what sum they would cost, that is without prejudice to the future. In neither of those two matters has any real advance been made since the time I last spoke to the House on this matter. I think I indicated in the very brief statement I made with reference to secondary education on the first Vote I have charge of that that was one of the outstanding problems under the Vote for Secondary Education, and that is the reason I referred to it in that opening statement.

Mr. JOHNSON

Am I to understand from the Minister that his Department is presently engaged in an actuarial inquiry as to the possible cost—that this matter is under present examination?

Professor O'SULLIVAN

We are at present examining. You may call it an actuarial inquiry if the words "actuarial inquiry" do not imply that we have got the thing submitted to a trained actuary. It is an actuarial inquiry in the sense that we have been looking into what the position is and what a scheme of this kind might cost. That is the position. At present, there are officials in my Department investigating it from that point of view, and whether any result comes from that, and whether or not we will be able to take up with the Department of Finance the question of whether or not pensions should be granted, are different questions. That is a question of principle. I have at present got as far as the preliminary investigation and I am making no promise as to whether any solution will be found.

Mr. JOHNSON

Is there any expectation that at a certain stage of that inquiry the Minister proposes to get into touch with the headmasters and teachers as to possible further development?

Professor O'SULLIVAN

I understand, so far as that goes, that if the Department could see its way to formulate a scheme, teachers would be ready to contribute their share. I cannot say now whether there was any definite statement to this effect from the deputation of headmasters that came to see me, but certainly there is an expectation on the part of teachers that if there were a scheme of that kind put forward there would also be a contribution from the schools. I cannot say whether that offer has definitely been made from the schools. They simply put forward a claim that there ought to be pensions to secondary teachers. For the moment I cannot recollect whether they actually made the offer.

Mr. JOHNSON

Then we may take it that the Minister will give distinct application to this question and perhaps, shall I say, try to expedite the inquiry.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

The Deputy can take it that I will give such application as I can to this question, but I must say that the amount of application I can give to any particular problem is rather limited.

Mr. JOHNSON

I am speaking of the Minister impersonally. Through his Department he will do that.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

I mean that, but the amount of things which turn up from day to day to which attention has to be given is rather disconcerting at times.

Professor MAGENNIS

Might I ask the Minister is he in favour of the principle, does he support the contention of the secondary teachers, that they ought to have pensions and does it depend, therefore, on the decision of the Department of Finance when it has those actuarial calculations as to whether or not any scheme of pensions will materialise?

Professor O'SULLIVAN

I think already I have tried to make it quite clear that I do not want either to throw any responsibility on the Minister for Finance failing to do things or as to the actual relations in their conversations between the two Departments. I certainly should prefer very much not to have to answer that particular question or to give an answer now that might in the future be an answer to that particular question.

Mr. O'DOHERTY

On this question of the position of secondary teachers, we have had a great deal of correspondence, and it has left upon our mind a very bad impression as to how these men were treated. I do not want to intervene between the Minister and his good intention, because I have the greatest faith in his good intentions as to a way out of this big difficulty, and there is a difficulty. There is a distinct feeling in the minds of many Deputies, like myself, who understand the question perhaps slightly, perhaps largely, that these men have been badly treated and that their position as compared with that of primary teachers is more or less of a scandal. I would rather not enter into the question raised by Deputy Magennis, but I would impress upon the Minister that I think it would be the wish generally of this House that he would deal in the most sympathetic way with the question.

Professor THRIFT

So far as I understand it, we have got to this stage that the Minister for Finance some two or three years ago stated that it was his view that pensions came as a logical consequence of the incremental salary scheme. We now have the Minister for Education—I think without definitely pledging himself—not requiring to have arguments put forward to him to urge the desirability of a pension scheme. But in one form or another he is anxious to avail himself of the tree of resource which he has already climbed with agility on various occasions. These various claims have to be weighed against one another, and it is very good indeed that we should have the Minister for Finance to weigh those claims. Further, we have got so far as to make the necessary calculations. In order to find out what the cost is to be, some considerable time is going to be, spent. I am not going to argue again on the real need for a pension scheme in order to put the secondary teachers into anything like a proper position. I think it has been argued so often that it would be very difficult to argue on the other side. But I would suggest to the Minister that some action is really urgent and that what we have going on in many schools is the continuance of teachers who have been serving long years and have really got past their work. They are suffering by having to continue to work. They cannot be thrown out, so to speak, on the street without anything to keep them in their old age, but the children are suffering as a consequence of having these teachers teaching when they are really past their work.

I suggest to the Minister seriously to consider what I believe has been put up to him as a partial but very inadequate scheme, to get over this period that will have to intervene before any final solution is arrived at. It is a scheme which on the face of it does not immediately cost anything. It is based on the idea that a teacher who has served his maximum period and who has got really to the stage when he could not do efficient work any longer might have his increment continued to him by the State as a pension and his place filled by a new teacher coming in who would not be entitled to increments. Coming in that way it would, at any rate, be a very gradual accumulating charge. There would be very few teachers who could retire on the pension that would give them, but there would be the most aggravated cases. I think a real good would be gained by even a partial scheme. I do not claim in any way that it is a satisfactory solution, but it is a transitory step that will allow of a better scheme being worked out, and it will tend to alleviate what is really at present an aggravated evil.

Under sub-head A, I want to draw attention to the Minister's figures as to the cost of secondary education, particularly in so far as it arises from the capitation grant. I think it is worth while drawing attention to the fact which was brought out in the Minister's reply to Deputy Alton, that that figure as to the cost of secondary education is very largely misleading, if you take it as a basis of comparison with other countries or with other States. As the Minister pointed out, it was calculated from the total cost of secondary education, taking account of the pupils recognised by him for the purpose of this capitation grant. At present we are in a very disadvantageous position with reference, for example, to the North of Ireland, inasmuch as the State pays no capitation grant for children up to the age of twelve. I think I am right.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

You could hardly call education up to the age of twelve secondary.

Professor THRIFT

Oh, yes, I would, certainly beyond what is normally regarded as the standard of primary education. In Northern Ireland the schools teaching such children would regularly get a grant of £5 per head. If there was a similar scheme in operation here the total sum paid would be larger, but not in a ratio at all that would correspond with the increase in numbers, and if you were paying capitation grants at the same rate as they are paying in Northern Ireland your figure of £14 would come down very substantially indeed. I do not know how the numbers would compare, but a rough calculation would show that if they were anything like equal the figure might be reduced from about £14 per head to under £10 in order to put it on a basis of comparison with Northern Ireland.

The schools certainly suffer from the fact that these capitation fees are not paid. Again, it is a question of money, but it is important to bring it out so that we will all understand exactly what the position is. The schools suffer and the teaching suffers. The teachers suffer because it is largely owing to the fact that the Ministry is unable to insist on the basic salary being paid in all cases. The schools are not able to pay owing to the limit of capitation grants. There is no doubt that our system of capitation grants is lower than that in other countries, and much lower than would appear upon the comparison of expenditure that the Minister gave.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

It is quite true that in secondary schools you have what may be termed preparatory classes and a pre-secondary type of pupil; but they are not really secondary and they would correspond largely to those that get the national school education elsewhere. These schools will not come in under the national system. So far as the misleading character of the figures is concerned, they are not quite as misleading as Deputy Thrift might suppose because in other countries we were calculating the average figure for pupils from the age of 12 onwards, and Northern Ireland was not one of the countries I actually quoted. Therefore, the comparison still holds good. We would have to make a similar correction in other countries if we made this correction here; that is merely for the purposes of comparison.

What Deputy Thrift said was undoubtedly the case—that for children up to 12 in these non-national schools there is no capitation grant paid. That matter was actually put before me by the deputation of headmasters, but I pointed out to them that it would mean an extra cost to the State on the actual figures they put before me. I cannot at the moment recall the exact figures, but I think we worked it out that it would mean anything up to £60,000 a year extra. It is merely a matter of memory again on my part, but I know when they did put forward this demand I asked them had they calculated what the demand for increased capitation and this combined would come to. I pointed out it would come to something in the nature of £60,000 or upwards at the present moment.

Professor THRIFT

It could not be more than half that.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

There was the usual explanation.

Professor THRIFT

Yes, the usual explanation.

Professor O'SULLIVAN

But because an explanation is usual, it does not follow that it is not true. By saying often that two and two make four, that does not ultimately make it five. That is what I want to make quite clear.

Question put and agreed to.