asked the Minister for Finance if he has yet made the necessary regulations to give effect to the promise contained in the official statement issued from his Department on the occasion of the publication of the Public Services (Temporary Economies) Bill, 1933, to the effect that lay teachers in Convent and Monastery Schools, and junior assistant mistresses were to be admitted to full pensions rights, and whether he is in a position to mention the date from which pensions will be payable to these teachers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Pensions for Lay Teachers and Junior Assistants.
I am not in a position to mention the date from which pensions will be payable to junior assistant mistresses and lay assistant teachers.
The Government have already decided in principle that the teachers in these classes are to be given the benefit of pensionability. The terms, however, upon which pensions may be granted are part of the general question of the future pension position of the National School teachers as a whole. That general question still remains unsettled. In April last the President, while Acting Minister for Finance, informed the Irish National Teachers' Organisation that the Government were willing to discuss with them the final settlement of the question of making solvent the Teachers' Pension Fund and the terms on which future pensions should be payable if the organisation sent plenipotentiaries with whom a settlement could be arrived at. That invitation has not been accepted and the Government have consequently not been in a position to settle the matter by agreement. Meantime the insolvency of the pension fund is growing. The Government are still willing to discuss the matter with the teachers, as already intimated. The delay in settlement of the general question necessarily postpones the date from which pensions can begin to be payable to the two classes referred to in the question. Unless the teachers' organisation is prepared to respond to the invitation already given, the Government will be obliged themselves, without further delay, to determine the matters outstanding, including that of the terms on which the pensions will be payable to the lay assistant teachers and junior assistant mistresses.