Several Deputies have referred to the injury done to the school-children by the strike. I only regret that those responsible for the strike have not had their attention called to this matter and have not had its illeffects emphasised to them in the eloquent manner in which various Deputies have spoken in the House to-day and yesterday. Deputy Martin O'Sullivan referred to the fact that many of the children affected by the strike, and who are now absent from school, were children of the poor, badly nourished and living in a poor environment. I think I might add that, in addition to all their disadvantages, they are now being asked to labour under a further serious disadvantage. Apparently it has been brought home to those who have been making appeals to me and to the Government that there are several thousand children leaving, or about to leave, the schools whose future is being very seriously affected by this strike. The figure of 4,000 has been mentioned by Deputy Larkin. Deputy McGilligan and others have referred to the fact that some of these children, who are now reaching the age of 14, will have no further opportunity for education so far as we know. There is a still more serious situation and that is that, not alone are they being deprived of education, but their opportunities for employment, for advancing themselves in the world, for settling down and earning a livelihood, are being very seriously jeopardised. On the 5th June next, the Department's primary schools' certificate examination is being held. This examination, as the House will remember, was established entirely for the benefit of the pupils so that they might have, towards the conclusion of their elementary school course, reliable official evidence that they had attained a certain standard of education.
The success or failure of these pupils in the examination for the certificate does not affect the teacher's standing or his financial prospects. We can understand that the teacher may have a natural desire to have his pupils succeed and do him credit. I think that the number of teachers who would not be anxious in normal circumstances to advance the prospects of their pupils by giving them every opportunity to sit and pass the examination would be very few. The examination really means nothing to the teacher; but success or failure in the examination may mean a great deal to the pupil.
The public are fully aware that this Department conducts this examination every year; that employers are increasingly demanding the primary certificate as the educational qualification necessary for entry into their employment. Certain apprenticeship committees, for instance, the apprenticeship committee for house painting and decorating and the apprenticeship committee for the furniture trade in Dublin, specify the primary certificate as the educational qualification for entry to employment as apprentices. So that the position of the boys in the back streets or in the areas where they were attending the schools which are now closed owing to the strike and who wish to go ahead for one of these trades is that if there is no examination there will be no job so far as they are concerned. The primary certificate is also accepted in lieu of the entrance examination in secondary schools.
It is clear, therefore, that the primary certificate examination is of very great importance for the pupils in the higher classes in the national schools and for that reason I have decided, in spite of the adverse conditions created by the teachers' strike, to make every effort to give the pupils here in Dublin who are eligible for the examination the opportunity to sit for it. The fact that pupils may sit for the examination can have no effect whatever on the issues involved in the strike. Neither side will have gained or lost anything thereby. But, if the pupils are not given the opportunity to sit for the examination, they and their parents may suffer distinct loss, and there seems to be no valid reason why they should be subjected to the possibility of this loss without any consequent gain to anybody.
In the light of these considerations, therefore, I am having arrangements made to provide facilities for the eligible pupils of schools now closed as a result of the withdrawal of teachers to sit for the primary school certificate examination and I trust that this year, as in the past, school managers will co-operate with the Department in making the examination a success. The centres at which the examination will be held will be selected with due regard to the convenience of the pupils concerned and, if it is necessary the places in question will be communicated by advertisement in the public Press to those concerned.
With regard to the motion in the name of Deputy Mulcahy, the Deputy must have left other members of the House in doubt, as he certainly left me, as to what was the chief argument or what was the chief reason he had in view in moving his motion to refer the Vote back. He dealt with the general question of education, which I shall mention later, before coming on to the question of the strike at present going on among the Dublin teachers. He made no reference to the proposals which the Government had made to the teachers' organisation. He made no criticism, and indeed very few of the Deputies who have been making these appeals have suggested that the proposals were not fair and reasonable. If they were not fair and reasonable, it is extraordinary, as has been pointed out, that well over 3,000 teachers consider that they should have been accepted. I should have liked Deputies to have paid more attention to the question of showing in what respect, having regard to the circumstances that have to be taken into consideration by the Government, the offer was not as I described it, fair and reasonable.
There is the second question whether, if, as I believe, the vast majority of our people consider it to have been fair and reasonable, the teachers were justified in having recourse to strike action. That is a question which it will be difficult to answer. But, for the moment at any rate, the Government are entrusted with the responsibility for the conduct of national affairs and in the decisions which they make in the general public interest they expect, and have the right to expect, that the public generally will support them. Have the Government taken up a proper attitude in this matter, or is what they have done in the general public interest?
Have Deputies been able to show that, if the Government took up another attitude, if they were prepared, as has been suggested, to make a graceful retreat, to yield gracefully, as one Deputy would have it, the general public interest would have been advanced? I think that if Deputies will think over the probable results and reactions of that course, they will have very little difficulty in coming to the conclusion, and I think, if they had been expressing their real minds in regard to this whole matter, they would have expressed that conclusion here, that it is not possible for the Government to alter their attitude and that these appeals they have been making to me could be more appropriately and more fruitfully addressed to the teachers.
The Government made their position clear in the course of correspondence and negotiation. An effort was made during the course of this debate to argue that it was not the question of remuneration of teachers even that was responsible for the strike, but a number of other matters. But the correspondence and negotiation dealt with the question of teachers' remuneration. The teachers met me in 1944 and 1945. They met the Taoiseach in 1945. I met them on three or four occasions towards the end of last year. In addition to that, correspondence took place between the teachers and myself. As a result of that correspondence I wrote them a letter on 1st December last in which I stated:
"As to the contention that the Government's proposals would leave the teachers in a worse position than in 1938 when measured by their actual remuneration in relation to the cost of living, it is necessary to point out that almost all sections of the community are at present and are for some time likely to remain in this position. This is the inevitable consequence of the war and the general circumstances of this country during the past six years. If the proposals which I put forward on the 16th November were brought into operation the teachers would in this regard be considerably better off than other sections of the community."
It must be remembered that the final proposals which I communicated to the teachers, at their request, represent an extra cost of £250,000 over and above the offer to which I have just referred, made to them on 16th November. I stated further:
"You refer to anomalies and objectionable features of the existing scales as being retained or accentuated within the framework of my proposals. This is a matter which is open to discussion, and I was and remain ready to consider the views of your organisation as to any adjustments you consider should be made and would be pleased to meet you to discuss possible improvements."
I have referred to the improvements which were made.
"With regard to the principles which you suggest are fundamental in the drawing up of any scale of salaries, the Government is not prepared to accept the view that all teachers—national, secondary and vocational—should be classed together and put on common scales. Neither can we agree that there should be no distinction on the grounds of sex. Whatever might be said in favour of this principle, the fact is that to act on it would have far-reaching results in regard to existing practice, not only in the case of teachers but also in that of a number of other classes of officers remunerated from public funds. It cannot be applied to the teachers in isolation and, in the Government's view, the present is not an opportune time for a general review of the whole question.
With regard to the suggestion that maxima should be obtained on satisfactory service, it is the considered opinion of the Government that the existing system, providing special recognition for exceptionally meritorious and efficient service, must be retained.
No necessity is seen for machinery for the revision of scales of salary on a year's notice from either side. The establishment of such machinery would introduce a highly undesirable factor of instability in the remuneration of teachers and uncertainty as to the extent of the burden falling on the community from time to time. The Government is, however, prepared to agree that any arrangement made at the present time should be open to review after a period of, say, two or three years, when it is hoped that conditions will have become well settled and prices will have reached a more stable level.
As to the remaining points, I have already met you on the question of men receiving extra payment on marriage, and I am prepared to meet you also on the making of allowances towards rent in the cities and larger towns.
The proposal submitted in your letter is one for the adoption of scales of salary in general equivalent to those now operating in Northern Ireland but so adjusted as to give effect to the principle of special allowances for married men. The Government cannot accept standards set up elsewhere as a basis for determining the scales of any class of officers remunerated out of the public funds of this State. The determining factors must be the needs, conditions and resources of the community within the State itself and the Government could not approach the Oireachtas on any other basis for authority to impose the additional taxation that would be necessary to give effect to increases in the teachers' salaries."
It was in the light of that letter and the position stated clearly by the Government, as representing its view as to the only basis upon which discussions could profitably proceed, that the negotiations continued.
I have already mentioned to the House that, on the 10th December— that is, ten days after I had sent the letter I have just read, the teachers wrote:—
"The executive sincerely hope that this is not the Government's last word on the matter, but should that be so, and should this offer of £150,000 represent the final effort of the Government to reach agreement, the executive desire to repeat what was stated to you in the course of Saturday's interview, namely, that the Dublin members of the organisation will be called out on strike on January 17th. The executive do not wish that this should be regarded as in any sense a threat. It is a bare statement of the course which events will eventually take if the appeal which has been made to the Government through you is ignored, and it is stated now in order to impress on the Government the seriousness of the position as it now stands."
Before I had time to communicate with the teachers about the matter, the paragraph was withdrawn. On December 11, I received the following letter:—
"We have learned with regret that a paragraph in the letter addressed to you on the 10th instant is regarded as containing a threat to strike.
"That being so, we desire to say that the paragraph in question is hereby unreservedly withdrawn. We feel that, in taking this action, we are expressing the views of the whole executive.
(Signed) T.J. O'CONNELL,
General Secretary.
D.J. KELLEHER,
Vice-President."
Having received that letter, withdrawing the strike threat unreservedly, I met the teachers, It is suggested by Deputy McGilligan that these meetings were not, in fact, negotiations. The point is that, since the beginning, the Government had in view the special position of the Dublin teachers. They recognised that a case could be made for the Dublin teachers which could not be made for rural teachers. If any analogy could be made in regard to the condition of State servants, it is surely between the State servants in Dublin and the national teachers in Dublin. Budgets were given to us of the teachers' position and the matter was referred toin extenso last year on these Estimates. It is quite clear that the Irish National Teachers' Organisation would not consider a separate scale for Dublin teachers. In order to meet the wishes of the organisation and try to satisfy the body of national teachers generally, the negotiations went ahead on the basis that all teachers should be treated the same, so far as primary teachers were concerned, at any rate. In whatever part of the country they were, there was to be no differentiation.
That was an attitude on the part of the teachers that the Government very much regretted, and I made it clear in my discussions with the teachers that we had particularly in mind the case of the Dublin teachers. I think the Teachers' Organisation felt that, because I mentioned the case of the Dublin teachers and made it clear that the Government felt that their position certainly deserved consideration, I was endeavouring to drive a wedge between the Dublin teachers and the other members of their organisation, to split their organisation. Of course, that is not the position, neither is it the position that it was because this threat of a strike was in the background that I mentioned the question of the Dublin teachers. I think I made that clear to their representatives.
Deputy Mulcahy suggests that the Government submitted to pressure. He mentioned that we had not met the teachers officially with regard to the new scales until this question of strike action loomed in the air. If the Deputy or anyone else thinks that it was because of the threat of a strike we met them, I wish to say, and the course of events has now clearly demonstrated it to all concerned, that it was not because of that that the Government made the offer. The position with regard to the teachers was peculiar. They were not paid on the basis of a cost-of-living bonus.
It was impossible to pick them out and say, "Their case must be dealt with specially; we must make a special exception in the case of the national teachers, but every other class which is in receipt of wages or salaries must remain controlled by the restrictions under the Emergency Powers Acts, known as the Standstill Order". That was quite impossible. That was what An Taoiseach and myself explained to the teachers in 1944-45. As I mentioned in my opening statement, as soon as the war was over and it began to seem that we were within reach of the time when these emergency restrictions would be taken off, we at once, without any avoidable delay, went into the question of the national teachers' salaries. They were the first section to be dealt with, and the fact that the Government took them out to deal with them primarily, as an urgent matter, shows that the Government had an interest in this question, that it was not a matter of presenting them with an ultimatum or a question of putting them aside, or a question, as Deputy Mulcahy suggests, of not treating them with consideration.
According to the Deputy, the teachers were treated with lack of consideration all through last year. The Deputy spoke at great length last year on the question of the teachers' position. This year he has not uttered a syllable about the proposals the Government made to the teachers, whether they were good, bad or indifferent, or in what respect they were lacking. But he comes along now and tells us that they were treated with a lack of consideration all through last year, that they were put aside and we only dealt with them when the question of the strike was mentioned.
If this present unfortunate situation is to be remedied, it ought to be remedied in the quietest way possible and, as has been suggested, without raising any additional rancour or bad feeling or making the situation worse than it is. What was originally a challenge to the Government has been made the subject of a political debate here to-day. I do not think any Deputy examining the question seriously can deny that that is what it was. It is now being made a political issue, the Government are being challenged in the Dáil on that issue, and the whole policy of the Government in regard to this and all ancillary matters is being challenged, or is likely to be challenged. If Deputies cannot see that that is a natural result of the speeches and the political issue that they have made out of this strike, then they are not honest with themselves.
They know very well that the remuneration of national teachers cannot be divorced from the remuneration of public servants generally. They know that it cannot be divorced from the question of the remuneration of other sections in the community outside. Every Deputy on the Labour Benches who has spoken—and they all have the right to speak on this matter—knows very well that if the Government are defeated on this issue, to-morrow there will be ten, 20, 100 demands from different sections, not alone those directly employed by the State, but those outside.
Deputy Larkin suggested that there was money to spare in the Budget. The point is that this neutral State was compelling its taxpayers to pay at a rate that the Opposition Parties, year, after year, described as absolutely indefensible and as justifiable only in a belligerent State. That was the attitude of the Opposition and the Press of this country and that was why the Minister for Finance considered it necessary to reduce income-tax.
Deputies have been shy about referring to the proposals. So far as I know, and I have listened to most of the debate, no Deputy has said that they were unreasonable or ungenerous. A great many Deputies, when this matter was first raised in the House, were under the impression that these scales compared very unfavourably with scales elsewhere and that they were altogether below what was reasonable, having regard to the fair claims of the teachers. We know that for years before the war, in fact all the time that the teachers have been campaigning for a settlement of this question of their remuneration, they have based their case on the scales granted to them in 1920. I am sure there are teachers in the country, a large number of teachers, who will admit that they would be quite satisfied with the restoration of the scales granted in 1920. When these scales were agreed upon in November, 1920, the cost-of-living figure stood at 276. It stands around 295 now. The Government could have said: "We will give you the 1920 scales for which you were looking, a restoration of the position when the British Government gave you new scales of salary 26 years ago".
The Government went beyond that. In the case of teachers at the minimum, the proposal that I made to the teachers on behalf of the Government would have meant, both in the case of men and women, an increase of £61 over and above the scales of 1920. At the maximum, the single man would be £25 above, the woman £62 above, and the married man £130 above. These would be the ordinary efficient teachers. If they were highly efficient, the single man would be £18 above the 1920 figure, the woman would be £69 above, and the married man £127, at the maximum of the highly efficient scale. In comparing these figures I have deducted, as I think I am entitled to do, the 4 per cent. pension contribution payable on the 1920 scales. No pension contribution is payable on the scales which I offered to the teachers in November last. The fact that reduced rates of income-tax are now operative, both here and in the Six Counties, enables a further comparison to be made between the salary scales there and those which were offered by me. We must also bear in mind that the scales in the North are subject to a deduction for pension contribution, usually 5 per cent., whereas here there is no pension contribution.
Let us take examples. The maximum of our scale for married men would have gone to £485 efficient, and £525 highly efficient, with rent allowances ranging from £40 in Dublin area to £10 in rural areas. There are no such rent allowances in the Six Counties. Take the case of a married Dublin teacher and that of a teacher in the North, each having two children. The net income for the Northerner at the maximum is £469, but our teacher would receive £512, if efficient; that is £43 more, and £544, if highly efficient; that is £75 more. Our rural teacher with two children would receive, if efficient, £486, or £17 more than the Northerner's figure of £469, and £521 if highly efficient; that is £52 more than his colleague, allowing for the deduction in both cases of the appropriate income tax and of the 5 per cent. pension contribution in the North. Our woman teacher would have £14 less on entering and £21 less at the efficient maximum, but would actually have £5 more in net cash at the highly efficient maximum, making the appropriate deductions for pension contribution in the Northern case, and income-tax in both. Our single men would go from £215 to £336, efficient, and £363 highly efficient, that is £22 less for a teacher at the minimum, £56 less at the maximum for efficient rating, and £29 less at the maximum for highly efficient. It must not be overlooked here that we are comparing a scale for single men only with a scale for men both married and single.
The attitude that the Government has taken up in this matter has been explained. I have referred to it in the Dáil and Seanad. It was very noticeable on the Budget proposals, when this extraordinary interest that was shown in the teachers for the past two days in this House could have been more usefully and more fruitfully exploited, that there was only one slight reference to the question of the teachers during that debate. The demands were for increases in old age pensions and other social services. I believe that if the Government were to take any line of retreat they would be simply abrogating their functions. I believe it would not be in the public interest that a Government which would even attempt to seek such a line of retreat in an issue of this kind, or which would allow itself to be browbeaten by any organised sectional interest, should remain a moment in office. This Government refuses to permit itself to be put in that position. I think there has been sufficient voice given to the opinions of the ordinary person down the country, and the ordinary citizen here in Dublin, to make us all realise that the country is taking a very keen interest, indeed, in this matter. The Government is expected to rule and if it is not able to assert its authority in matters connected with the national housekeeping, it would seem too much to expect that it is going to maintain its position and its authority in more serious matters, which happened to be raised also at the present time.
There are influences and individuals abroad very anxious to fish in muddy waters, and to create as much agitation and turmoil as they can to advance whatever particular ideas they may hold although they do not necessarily hold the same ideas very long. Unfortunately, their tendency to violent action, and to the creation of disturbance and turmoil, does not change, and with the removal of emergency controls to which these people are looking forward, and the fact that the war has ended, and that we have now a free Press, when any agitator can get publicity for himself, even though he represents nobody but himself, and cannot even allege that he is the spokesman of any substantial section, it is obvious to everybody that the Government is going to have a very difficult situation to deal with during the coming period.
We have always been mindful of that. We have realised that we were going to have that difficult situation. I had thought the national teachers, as intelligent educated citizens, as leaders of the community, would appreciate the Government's difficulty. Instead of that, they have rushed in and allowed themselves to be used as a spearhead, to be jockeyed into an agitation of this kind, the full dimensions of which we can only guess at. We do not know how it will develop or what the end may be.
There is, therefore, a much greater question at stake than the question of money. As far as the question of money is concerned, it is not a question of the Government refusing to pay a penny more than what is just and reasonable. It is a question of their having fairly and fully considered over a long period what was fair, reasonable and just in all the circumstances. The Government were asked to give their final word and they gave it. They were asked to fix a date, and before there was any question of the removal of the Standstill Order taking effect, and before much lower paid sections of the community received any intimation whatever that there was to be a removal of this control, so that they could strive for an improvement in their conditions, the date September 1st. was fixed by the Government.
In fixing that date the Government had to face the fact that it was going to be regarded as D-day for a great number of people, for various other sections as well as the national teachers. But in an effort to remove any doubt that the teachers might legitimately have as to whether we were in earnest on this matter, whether we were putting proposals before them which we meant to keep on the long finger and bring in at some date in the not too distant future, we fixed that date, not knowing at the time what the world position, the general international situation or even our own internal difficulties might be by that date. We are in the position, as well as being the executive authority of this State, of having at our disposal all the necessary information. By virtue of our position, we have that information and are able to judge all the relevant circumstances.
Deputy Morrissey says the question of arbitration has not been raised. No, because, 10 years ago, when the Minister for Finance had his proposals rejected by the Civil Service organisations, it was apparently recognised, because the matter has never been raised here since, that it was impossible for the Government to hand over the determination of the remuneration of the State servants to an outside body. No matter how anxious the Government might have been to bring in the scheme, the inherent difficulties were so great that it was impossible to satisfy the claims being made and the whole matter had to be dropped. During the course of that debate, it was pointed out that, when the proposal for the establishment of Whitely councils was put up to the former Government, the President of the Executive Council, as he was at that time, said that the establishment of these councils and the setting up of the type of arbitration for the Civil Service which they envisaged would mean that the Government of the day would simply be divesting itself of its powers and its responsibilities.
That is the position, and Deputies seem to have recognised it because they were careful to say that arbitration was not in question, but if arbitration in regard to money and the improvement of the financial proposals the Government made was in question, why all this talk? The Government is the authority responsible for the custody of the national purse. It is the trustee of the people, and it is its duty and responsibility to deal fairly and justly with all sections, and to see that no one section gets an advantage at the expense of others, or at the expense of the community generally— in other words, an unfair advantage. Ministers who sit at the table of the Executive know very well that it is perfectly true that the Government is in the position of a mediator. Has the Minister for Agriculture not to put his proposals for the improvement of farming conditions, for the bettering of prices for farm produce and so on, before the Government and have not all the Ministers to express their opinions and is the decision not the collective responsibility of the Government? So, too, with regard to the Army, the police, the Civil Service——
