I beg to move:
"Go gceaduítear Scéim Aois-liúntais na Múinteoirí Meánscoile, 1929, a dhin an tAire Oideachais le haontú an Aire Airgid agus do leagadh fé bhráid na Dála Dé Céadaoin, 12adh Meitheamh, 1929, fé Acht Aois-liúntais na Múinteoirí, 1928 (Uimh. 32 de 1928).
"That the Secondary Teachers' Superannuation Scheme, 1929, made by the Minister for Education with the consent of the Minister for Finance, and laid before the Dáil on Wednesday, 12th June, 1929, under the Teachers Superannuation Act, 1928 (No. 32 of 1928) be approved."
This resolution is on the Paper in consequence of a provision in the Teachers Superannuation Act which was passed by the Oireachtas at the end of last November. Section 5 of that Act lays it down that when the Minister for Education prepares a scheme and has got for that scheme the consent of the Minister for Finance, the scheme shall be brought up for the definite approval of the Dáil and the Seanad; not merely that it shall lie on the Table of the House and pass if there is no objection registered, but that there should be definite approval. So far as the scheme is concerned, the function of the two Houses of the Oireachtas is limited to approval or rejection, naturally, of course, with a discussion of the scheme. It is proposed to bring the scheme into operation, if it should receive the approval of both Houses, on 1st August next. On more than one occasion during the last one and a-half years both the Minister for Finance and myself have made it quite clear that any delay in the introduction of the scheme would not be allowed to operate against those who might wish to retire subsequent to 1st January, 1927. Provision to that effect is made in the scheme.
The scheme is a voluntary scheme. In the existing conditions of secondary education in the country, it would not be possible, and it would certainly not be desirable, to make the scheme compulsory. There are large numbers of people engaged in secondary education who, after having been engaged in it for a number of years, may leave that particular occupation, cease to belong to that profession, and, by the time that the pension would arrive, or even long before it would arrive, in the normal way, they would already be outside the scheme. A variety of considerations like that compelled us to make the scheme a voluntary scheme—voluntary, that is from the point of view of the teacher.
The scheme is also a contributory scheme. Not merely will there be State assistance but, in addition, provision is made for a contribution on the part of the teachers who join the scheme, and also on their behalf on the part of the schools where they teach. It is voluntary on the part of the teachers. But if a teacher in any school elects to join the scheme, the scheme then becomes compulsory so far as that school is concerned, and the necessary contribution from the school is deducted on behalf of the teacher. Pensionable salary is determined by taking what is known as the normal basic salary, £200 in the case of men and £180 in the case of women, and adding to that the increments which the teacher has received at the time of his or her retirement.
When the scheme is in full operation, or when the transition stage is passed, it is proposed that he will get one-eightieth for every year of service—one-eightieth made up in the way I have described. The contribution on the part of the teacher will be 4 per cent. of his salary—that is, the salary that I have indicated— and 2½ per cent. by the school on behalf of the teacher on the basic salary that the school pays to the teacher. There is a feature of this particular scheme to which I would like to draw attention. From the teacher's point of view, it is probably the most satisfactory side of this scheme—the transitional arrangements made to deal with the teachers who, owing to the number of years that they have already served, and the age they have reached, will not be in a condition to make many contributions to the fund. There are a number of ways in which that problem could be dealt with. In another place it was dealt with by giving the teacher who has served about, say, forty years, simply a lump-pension of, say, £120. That is to continue for a couple of years—until, I think, the year 1932. After that, there will be a gradual increase of contributions from individual teachers coming in.
I thought a scheme of that kind might press hardly on people for whom a strong case has been made— those who have already served a number of years. What we have done, therefore, is to fix the pension of all teachers by giving them a fraction of the number of years they have served. For that purpose it is necessary to distinguish between two types of service—that is, the service for which there has been a contribution to the fund by the teacher and by the school, and non-contributory service for which there has been no such contribution. The pension will be made up by giving one-eightieth for every year of contributory service, and one-hundredth for every year of non-contributory service.
The first proposal was to give one-hundred and twentieth for every year of non-contributory service. That in itself might compare somewhat favourably with the scheme that I have referred to. But such a strong case was put up by the Secondary Teachers' Organisation that we were able to meet them in this respect, and the result is that one-hundredth for every year of service will be given. Consequently, if we take a man teacher who has at present served forty years he gets, not a pension of £120 but a pension, roughly speaking, of £160. Of course as the years go on and as the contributions come in, the one-hundredth computation will be replaced by the computation of one-eightieth. The pension will gradually increase.
Provision is also made in this scheme for the repayment of gratuities on death, for the repayment of gratuities to members leaving the scheme, and, if they return to the scheme, for the repayment into the scheme of these gratuities with the accumulated interest. Provision is also made for the case of national teachers who cease to be national teachers and become secondary teachers. They can enter the scheme by paying into the scheme the amount they have received from the National Teachers' Pension Fund with interest thereon. The other provision of which advantage is being taken is in the case of secondary teachers who may be appointed to appropriate posts in the Civil Service. What we have done here is to see that their actual teaching service time will not be actually lost; that they will get pensionable benefit from their teaching time.
The drafting of that was rather difficult. The idea would be more or less this—if a teacher has had ten years' service or, say, fifteen years' service as a teacher, and is appointed an Inspector of National Schools, then, when his time for retirement from the Civil Service comes, he gets a pension made up partly of what is due to him from the Civil Service and partly what was due to him as pension as teacher in the secondary school, but not at the salary at which he left the secondary school. It would be at a hypothetical salary which is calculated on the assumption of what he would have been receiving if he had remained teaching in the school. That is really the gist of the appendix to the scheme. It is intended to bring the scheme into force, if the Dáil and Seanad approves, on the 1st August, 1929. I might apologise for the scheme being held up so long, but each drafting of the scheme led to the presentation of new problems and new cases that might arise, but which were actually not met in the scheme. It is impossible even yet to guarantee that every possible case that might arise has been met in the scheme. A few months ago, when we thought the scheme was completed, further consideration of the type of case that might present itself showed a recasting was necessary. That rather complicated the necessary complications, and the difficulty of drafting has led to delay. As I said, we have taken provision in the scheme to see that as far as possible delay will not prejudice any features of the scheme.
