Private Deputies' Business. - Reopening of National Schools in Dublin—Motion. – Dáil Éireann (12th Dáil) – Wednesday, 23 Oct 1946

Private Deputies' Business. - Reopening of National Schools in Dublin—Motion.

General Mulcahy

I move the following motion, which stands in my name and that of Deputy McGilligan:—

That the Dáil is of opinion that the long-continued closing of schools in the City of Dublin is a grave source of moral danger and educational loss to the children, and thus creates distracting problems for parents, and therefore calls upon the Government to set up at once a conciliation committee consisting of representatives of the Government, the managers, the teachers, and of the Dublin School Attendance Committee, to consider and make recommendations with a view to terminating the present dispute and bringing about the immediate reopening of the schools.

We find ourselves at a very critical stage in our social, economic and even political development and in a very critical stage in world affairs. The whole foundation of our national unity, the strength of our national character and the capacity of our people to deal with any aspect of their affairs in the future is very seriously undermined by a strike as a result of which the whole of the lay body of national teachers in the City of Dublin are away from their work and are supported in their protest by the whole of the body of national teachers throughout the country. The effects of that on the future may be very serious. To-day it is undermining our confidence and our will to sit down to discuss anything of an important nature with regard to world affairs. I recall, when we were in the beginnings of the movement after the war ended in 1918, when the country was setting itself to gather strength and to set out determinedly to secure legislative freedom to manage its own affairs — I recall Terence MacSwiney, when talking about the possible strength and determination of the country to face that situation, saying that we should have taken the Councils Bill which would, at least, have given us control of our own education. So clearly did he realise, as an educationist, that in education lay the power of unifying our strength, that he looked back to the despised and spurned Councils Bill of 1908 and felt that it was a pity the Irish nation had not agreed to accept even that measure so as to get control of its education. Twenty-five years after setting up our Legislature, we find ourselves in more critical and difficult times than we were in at the close of the 1918 war. We have had command of our own education for more than 20 years. We have had the task of moulding the machine and settling the programme and objectives. And we find ourselves now in the astonishing position that the whole body of our national teachers are on strike against the general conditions under which they work. This motion has been put down for the purpose of helping us to clear up the situation.

I ask that the Dáil bring the pressure of its opinion upon the Government to get the Government to assemble the committee mentioned in the motion so that when they have discussed the matter — and a very detailed and intricate matter such as that can best be discussed inside the walls of the council chamber — we shall have a situation in which the teachers will go back to their work with relations between themselves and the Government so restored and so harmonious that we can rely upon their carrying on the work of the schools and a situation in which any difficulties that may require to be settled — and there will be difficulties — will be suitably adjusted. Either that or we shall know that we shall have to face the future with a continuing strike of the teachers or with the strike broken by the Government and the teachers driven back to their schools. We shall know exactly what the issues are because we shall have them clearly stated by the four bodies mentioned in the motion, whose representatives will have examined them in the quiet atmosphere of the council chamber.

I am asking the Government to be fair to themselves, to be fair to us and to be fair to the country. We have had sufficient experience during the recent war to realise what has happened to countries where various groups have spurned the council chamber and gone into the battlefield. We know that the people in whose interest, apparently, the council chamber was spurned and the battlefield chosen have been brought to ruin and destruction. In our own country in the past 25 years, in matters connected with the civil war and with the economic war, the council chamber was spurned on various occasions. Looking back over that period, there is nobody who would not make sacrifice to undo the years of damage and the years of loss that resulted from the spurning of the council chamber. To-day, we are dealing with a body of men and women whose services and loyalty to this country are unquestioned. Then, we have the Government, whose interest in the country cannot be questioned either. They are interested in every aspect of the country's life. They have been standing outside the council chamber and they have presented the Parliament and the people with a very difficult situation which ought to be argued in detail in the clearest possible way. At the present moment there is a situation in Dublin in which 124 schools are closed. The remainder are open. But, out of a total school population of something like 75,900, 44,000 children are absent and have been absent for the last seven months. In the schools that are open, the normal number of children on rolls is 43,900. At present the attendance is 31,000. The normal attendance in these schools has fallen by about one in seven and the children that have left these schools as a result of the strike together with the children belonging to the schools that are closed total 44,000 or 58 per cent. of the school population.

It is suggested in much that has been said during the last seven months that the teachers are demanding control of the public purse, that they are demanding rights in relation to the public purse that cannot be admitted with regard to anybody who is paid directly out of State funds. It has been suggested that this is a strike against the State. It may be that later on these things will have to be argued but I do not think it is advisable that they should be argued until all the questions are again referred to the four bodies that I speak of and have been discussed inside the walls of the council chamber. I do not admit that this is a strike against the State. I do not admit, that this is a demand on the part of the teachers that they shall dictate in any way, that they shall have particular command over the public purse but, if these things have to be argued, they ought to be argued after the matter has been fully and carefully considered and when Parliament can get a more reasoned statement as to the things that are at issue from these four bodies I speak about. For six years out of the last seven I have moved back the Education Estimate here as an expression of the general dissatisfaction of the people and our general dissatisfaction with the condition of education in the country. I have criticised the position from the point of view of the size of classes, from the point of view of the Irish language, the lack of results with regard to the Irish language, the lack of confidence on the part of the teachers in the inspectorate, the ignoring by the Department of the opinions of the teachers on vital matters, the general condition of poverty of some of the classes of the teachers. Year after year, over quite a large number of questions, we have expressed here the dissatisfaction of the people and our dissatisfaction with the work of the Department of Education.

Strikes arise over many things. One particular item may be the matter that will detonate the gathering discontent of a group of people, but any of us who has been discussing educational matters or endeavouring to keep in touch with the educational system or with the schools or the conditions in the schools for some years past knows that there is more behind this strike than mere dissatisfaction with pay; that you have a position in which no conscientious teacher could be satisfied that the work that he is endeavouring to carry out in the schools is being properly carried out, that he has the right contact with the Department or that he is getting any real help or recognition from the Department for the work that is being carried out. Therefore, I ask that the question be referred to a body such as this.

What types of questions are likely to arise between the groups of representatives that I speak about? The question of pay will be discussed, not in relation to the teachers alone, but in relation to the effect the present system of payment has on the children. Inside these walls there will be discussed the size of classes at the present time, the number of pupils a teacher has to teach, the multiplicity of classes teachers have to teach in some cases, particularly in small schools, the position with regard to the teaching of the Irish language and the teaching of other subjects, the position with regard to the inspectorial approach to the assessment of the teacher's work in the school and the settling of the teacher's remuneration. There will be quite a large number of matters discussed and, of necessity, discussed there, and I submit that in face of what the strike of teachers means, these matters have to be fully and thoroughly examined by people who are competent to examine them before here in Parliament we can satisfactorily discuss them.

The Taoiseach has said from time to time that here in this Chamber is the place to discuss educational matters, and he has retreated from a position in which he stood years ago, when he was of the opinion that any Minister for Education carrying on education in a country in which the position of the Minister for Education is what it is in this country ought to have an advisory committee around him. We could quote the Taoiseach on that.

The Taoiseach

I am not objecting to that.

General Mulcahy

In spite of the fact that it is now said that this is the place to discuss educational matters, my complaint when I was moving, for the sixth time in seven years, that the Estimate be referred back, was that it was a very tiresome thing year after year to have to stand up after the Minister for Education had spoken and move that his Estimate be referred back for reconsideration, and to be putting to him the general thirst in the country for some confidence in the Department of Education, on the one hand, and the general thirst for some knowledge as to the broad lines of the Department's approach to an educational syllabus or programme in the country and to be meeting just the same dumb kind of reluctance to discuss the educational problems in the country to-day. I mention that as showing that I feel and know that there is more than matters of pay concerning the teachers in their present attitude and that it was not a mere matter of pay that brought a body such as the national school teachers into a position of being on strike in the way in which they are to-day.

The child is affected in this matter. You have in the various numbers of categories of pay and of rating the position that nobody with any quality as a teacher can be expected to stay in either a slum area or a rural area. The system of pay, when you take the rating system that is involved in it and the category system that is involved in it for principals, has the effect of leaving us in a situation in which the slum child is denied the teacher of quality and the people in our glens and hills and remote districts are denied the teacher of quality also. What is the position under the rates that have been recently published? An unmarried man in a slum area after 18 years can hope to rise to a salary of £380 which, at the 1938 figure, was valued £223. The teacher in a slum is teaching a large class, teaching in circumstances in which he cannot hope to make a decent show when the inspector comes on the occasional visit to decide whether he is a person to be marked highly efficient or not. The teacher cannot attain the rating of highly efficient until he gets a certain mark by an inspector. What is the test that the inspector applies? It is the kind of answer he gets to a particular question or questions put on a particular section of a particular subject on a particular day. Is the teacher there simply to impart information to the child or is he there to develop the character, the imagination, the personality of the child?

I ask the Minister for Education to look back over his description of what was expected of the teacher, when he spoke at the I.N.T.O. Congress in 1943. It has been recorded already, in column 2647 of the Official Debates for the 27th April, 1945. He said:—

"When the war was over, however it ended, nothing could be as it was before. There would be an era of new creation, new planning, new building. In this great scheme teachers everywhere must take an essential part. Small nations will have their own special problems, too, and not the least of ours will be the preservation of our language and our individuality as a nation. We must equip ourselves to meet postwar trade competition and, at the same time, not only maintain our present standards but raise them progressively in every sphere of national life: education, social service, agriculture, industry and commerce. To accomplish this, we must plan carefully and methodically and, in particular, must train the youth to take their place in the nation's advance. Education and training of over 70 per cent. — the Taoiseach would say 90 per cent. — of those whose work would be carried out on the farms, factories, shops and offices would, in the future, be either mainly or entirely in the teachers' hands — that is, in the primary teachers' hands — and the work of all other schools would depend on them, since their task was the basic one, the laying of a solid foundation, without which no specialist superstructure could be built or maintained. It is not too much to say, therefore, that the future development of our country will depend on your leadership more than on that of any other body. What was the essential task of such leadership? The giving to the coming generation of a keen sense of social service, such a feeling for the community, such knowledge of it, such grasp of its continuity, its profound values, its inherited obligations as would enable that generation which now look to the teachers for inspiration to face the tremendous task of shaping the new Ireland. No greater duty has been laid on any body of men and women than the one laid on you — a heavier task than is laid on the shoulders of any other teachers in the world in that, in addition to the great task of education you have been asked to perform, another equally heavy task has been given to you such as no other body of primary teachers has been asked to carry, the rescue of the greatest heritage of our race, our native language. It is a terrific task, a task one might say for supermen, that we have undertaken. Many have not grasped its magnitude clearly and some few showed signs of discouragement, because they expected results too easily. Those who have borne the brunt and burden of the work are not discouraged, because they knew the task was a hard one, which had to be faced with determination and not with any idea that difficulties could be solved otherwise than by application and hard work."

That is the work and that is the type of person which the Minister appreciates the national teacher should be, the type of person he thinks he can be made to be and the type of work that he, above all teachers in the world and above all classes in this country, has to take on himself.

Yet the organisation of the pay is so arranged that good teachers are denied to the slums and to the poorer districts, because the rating and the grading is so arranged that a man who gets himself into a slum area wants to get out of it at the earliest possible moment, so that he will not be prejudiced in the matter of being marked "highly efficient". The man working on an Irish mountain or in an Irish glen wants to get out of it to an Irish town or to Dublin or to the suburbs here, because he cannot maintain himself where he is. He cannot do the work that is required and bring himself and his children up to the standard required by the Minister for this great work of building up Ireland. At any rate, he is offered more in the towns and in the city. He is in a worse position, in that he knows he will bear the brand of not being "highly efficient" as long as he stays in the slum or in the glen, since the manipulation, in the interests of economy, is such that only one-third of the whole of his class — and not even one-third of the whole of the class — can be marked out before the pupils, before the country and before his own colleagues as "highly efficient".

Therefore, in the interests of the children, that type of grading cannot stand. The child in the slum has his place in the Ireland of the future and is entitled to equally generous treatment and equal opportunity with anybody else in the land. The child in a backward rural district, in the glens or on the hillside, is entitled to the same equality of opportunity as any other child. The country hill or glen can produce a Davitt or a Collins, just as the more crowded area in the City of Dublin can produce a Griffith or a Pearse. If we are to leave the Irish glenside or the crowded areas in the cities without our best teachers, then we are undermining the opportunities and the prospects of our country and we are dealing unfairly with certain sections of our people.

When this question of rating and of categories arose, it was not a case of a group of people seeking merely after benefit for themselves, but of a group of people standing up for the profession in which they are and standing up for the people they are expected to defend.

The question of women teachers and their pay will naturally arise. Owing to the unsatisfactory conditions of service, men are moving out of the teaching profession and women are becoming more and more the teachers of a larger number of children. The woman teacher in the slum area or in the out of the way rural district has the same qualifications, the same capacity, the same work with her children as elsewhere. Very often, it is greater, because in her one working day she is handling four or five different classes of children in different grades and they call on her activities and her energy, so as to make the mental strain much greater than if she were dealing with just one particular class of child. When the women seek for equality with men there is something to be said on their side, something to be, at any rate, more thoroughly argued out in consultation between the teachers and the managers, the Department and people like the school attendance committee, who know something of the objectives and results of education, before we are asked finally to argue it out here, or to argue it in circumstances in which we are arguing at the same time the conditions of a strike.

There are many things in the circumstances the teachers have had to put up with in the past when they might almost have despaired of their being able to carry out the work imposed on them. In any representations which have been made in this matter, the Department have been either utterly heedless or utterly incapable of doing anything for one reason or another to help. One of the questions which would arise for discussion in such a conference as we speak about is the question of the size of the classes. It is a matter that I have dealt with year after year for a number of years. I have appealed to the Department that we ought to realise that in our schools, where we have a second language to deal with, we ought at least make every attempt to see that children get as fair a chance of being instructed as the children in Great Britain get where they have only one language to deal with. I have pointed out that it was accepted in Great Britain in 1929 that a cardinal point in national education policy was that large classes should be eliminated, and that all classes should be brought down lower than 50 children on the roll. Such a determined effort was made in Great Britain between 1929 and 1938 that in their boroughs and urban districts, where there were 22,000 classes, with over 50 on the roll, in 7.9 of their classes that figure was reduced to 1.9. In the county boroughs where there were more than 46,000 classes with 10.9 of these classes having more than 50 children on the roll, the percentage by 1938 was reduced to 2.4. In the City of London, where there were 15,000 classes, 10.6 per cent. of them had over 60 children on the roll and that was reduced to 4.4 in a period of ten years. Of the total of all these publicly administered classes in which in 1929 7.2 had more than 50 pupils on the roll the figure was reduced to 1.4.

In 1941 I discussed this matter here. I drew the attention of the House to the conditions existing in 12 schools taken at random in North-East Dublin. In one school there were 13 boys' classes. Three of the classes had over 50 on the roll. In the second school there were nine classes, five of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the third school there were 13 classes, with eight classes having more than 50 on the roll. In the fourth school there were 28 classes, 20 of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the fifth school there were 19 classes, with 12 having more than 50 on the roll. In the sixth school there were 14 classes, ten of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the seventh school there were nine classes, five of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the eighth school there were seven classes, with four having more than 50 on the roll. In the ninth school, there were ten classes, four of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the tenth school there were eight classes, five of which had more than 50 on the roll. In the eleventh school there were 15 classes, four of which had more than 50 on the roll, and in the twelfth there were five classes, two of which had more than 50 on the roll.

What is the position to-day? I asked for certain information, but owing to the strike I only got it for four schools. In the first of these schools, with nine classes, there are six with more than 50 on the roll. If all the children in the school were divided amongst the teachers there would be 51 in each class. In the second school, with 23 classes, 18 of these have more than 50 on the roll. In the third school with 19 classes 12 of them have more than 50 on the roll. In the fourth school with 15 classes there are seven classes with more than 50 on the roll. Over a school period of something like eight years the teachers who are dealing with these children have to educate them, to develop their personality and their characters, to give them an appreciation of citizenship and of what their work in the future will mean to their country. They have to prepare them to face their after-school life. It has to be remembered that they are dealing with the infants and with the first and second classes entirely through Irish, a language which the children do not speak at home. The teachers are doing their work conscientiously in this matter. Since this State was set up at least three generations of school children have passed through the schools. A generation of school children had passed through the schools at the time that we left Office. The children who passed through the schools during those eight years passed through them at a time when something was being done to revive the Irish language. An estimate might have been made at the end of that period as to what the results were. Another eight years had passed by 1939 or 1940, and a third generation of children will soon be coming to the end of their period.

The teachers are looking around to see what the result of all that work has been. Some of them, representing the organisation as a whole, made a report on the general situation with regard to that. The fact is that while inspectors of the Department discussed on behalf of the Minister that report which the teachers had put together the Minister himself refused to do so. The Minister, in his statement on the Department of Education on the 3rd May, 1943, speaking in Irish said:—

"Ní féidir linn an Ghaedhilg do shlánú gan sár-iarracht do dhéanamh i gcoinnibh Béarla agus uaireanta i gcoinnibh an náduir dhaonna féin, i dtreó go mairfeadh an teanga. Ní féidir cogadh mí-chuíbheasach teangan den tsórt san do choimeád ar siúl gan íbirt, agus gan iarrachtaí diana, buan-tseasmhacha — agus níil a mhalairt sin do rogha againn muna mian linn leigint don Ghaedhilg bás d'fháil mar theangain labhartha."

That is to say they are working under the kind of Ministerial direction which is embodied in that statement. The statement translated reads:—

"We cannot save Irish without waging a most intense war against English and against human nature itself for the life of the language. Such desparate linguistic war cannot be carried on without sacrifice and persistent effort and struggle, but we have no choice unless we intend to let Irish die as a living language."

The teachers who are on strike to-day are looking around to see what will be the result of their years of labour. They have been years of great labour. That labour was given willingly by the teachers. It involved much struggle, and much suffering if you like, because what the Minister said is perhaps true, that the work of the teachers in giving instruction through Irish to infants and the first and second classes had to go against human nature. Any teacher with a vision of what his work was intended to do must know and must feel that in that he was working against human nature. But the teachers who have been doing that work as part of the national education policy have been looking for results and have been pained by the little results that there have been. When the teachers put their judgment, arising out of their experiences into a report and did so in considerable detail, the Minister was not prepared to discuss the report with them.

These are some of the things that are behind the general atmosphere of dissatisfaction and of depression that has brought the teachers into the position of being on strike to-day.

I think that in fairness to the people as a whole, the questions which are at issue should now, at the end of a seven months' strike, be submitted to people experienced in the various branches of education in some place where people with responsibilities of various kinds can sit down and calmly discuss what it is that has really brought about the unfortunate situation which we have in the City of Dublin at present. We have before us very difficult times and the various problems which confront us call for a clear examination, not only by everybody in this House, but by everybody in the country. Much has been said during the last seven months which divided the people in one way or another, for or against the teachers or for or against the Government without any critical examination of what is at stake in the strike and in the general work of education in the country in which we should be so interested. There are very many discreditable elements in the disastrous situation which exists at the present moment. I submit to the Minister that if the Government see any reason in the situation why they should stand out resolutely, unimpressed and stubborn, against any of the demands of the teachers, that in their own interests they should sit down in council with them, the managers and the school attendance committees, so that they can restate their case clearly in the atmosphere of the council chamber and be all the more ready then to stand by what they think should be done when these discussions are over.

I am quite convinced, knowing the things that are at issue, having seen them brought out in debate year after year and brushed aside, knowing the shock that this dispute has given everybody, that if this matter could be brought inside the council chamber, not only would you end the strike but you would harmonise the whole atmosphere in which education is being carried out. You would give us what we all want—a chance of looking objectively at the various problems involved and a chance of correcting things that are wrong at present. In my opinion, you cannot continue, after what has happened, with the discrimination in pay and rating against poor city areas or outlying country districts. You cannot educate children in classes of 50, 60, 70 and 80. You cannot continue to judge the ability of teachers to carry out the work of their profession by a casual visit of an inspector, who bases his judgment on some particular type of question on some type of subject at a particular day. What we want is a system by which the general work of the teacher will be so judged that the Department will be able to say whether he is carrying out the functions that the Minister sees to be the functions of a teacher in this world of ours, whether, to quote him again:—

"The task of the teachers is the basic one of laying a solid foundation without which no specialist superstructure could be built or maintained. The future development of the country depends on their leadership, more than on that of any other body. What was the essential task of such leadership? The giving to the coming generation of a keen sense of social service, such a feeling for the community, such a knowledge of it, such grasp of its continuity, its profound values, its inherited obligations, as would enable that generation which now look to the teachers for inspiration to face the tremendous task of shaping the new Ireland."

When a teacher is being judged for his category or for his rating why is he not judged on how he carries out his task? Why is he judged on how some particular piece of information is retained by the child? I ask the Minister and every member of the Government Party, would it not be better now, after seven months have passed, if this difficulty were referred to the council chamber, to see whether it cannot be solved or cannot be eased a bit, rather than continue the situation that exists at present, which cannot lead to anything but a very disastrous state of affairs in the whole Education Department?

There are other questions that will arise for discussion. The bodies referred to here know themselves what these questions are. To attempt to argue the merits of the strike in this House and to deal with every aspect of the details of the issues that might have affected the strike would bring us to a position that would lead us nowhere. I ask the Government to accept the proposal to refer this question to the bodies I have set out there. If it is a question of a strike against the State, let us hear about it in calmer discussion. If it is to be a question of the teachers collaring from the public purse more than they should collar from it, let us hear that also in calmer discussion. As to the question of conciliation, why should the teachers be the only body of people in the country who are refused a conciliation board? The Labour Court has been welcomed by every section of the community as a substantial contribution to industrial harmony and peace. Civil servants are being offered their own particular type of arbitration. The only group of people left outside that scheme of things are the teachers. I do not want to have discussed even now the question of whether the teachers should be provided with arbitration machinery. I only ask that all the things that are at issue should be referred to this particular group in an ad hoc way, to discuss the strike that exists at present— the things which have arisen and the things that can and ought to be done in future to give us a harmonious atmosphere in which the teachers and the Department can work in the interests of the children, the people and the future of this nation.

Dr. O'Higgins

I desire formally to second the motion, reserving my right to speak later.

Mr. Norton

I want to direct my remarks to what I think is the most important aspect of this dispute, namely, the question of devising ways and means of bringing the strike to a mutually satisfactory conclusion. I, therefore, do not want to travel over the wide domain of education in general, but rather to confine my remarks to suggestions whereby this unfortunate dispute can be brought to an end in circumstances which would leave no bitterness, no discord, and might in another respect open up a new vista, a better one than many which we have had so far as educational development in this country is concerned. No matter what my personal feelings may be in respect of the merits of this dispute—and I think there is no doubt where my personal sympathy lies: with the teachers—I do not want to impart into this debate any bitterness or any acrimony, and I only hope that if this debate does not lead to a settlement of the dispute, at least nothing will be said to embitter the position and leave the situation worse at the end of the debate.

On all sides of the House and outside the House, there is widespread and sincere regret that the present position has been reached, a regret based upon the fact that all sections of the community realise that the children who expect to receive their quota of education in our national schools are unfortunately not receiving the limited quota of education which they receive under our national school system. Having in mind the very serious sacrifices which the children are making, sacrifices which they may carry with them for many years, through adolescence and manhood and womanhood, it seems to me that the paramount issue to-day is to settle the strike, and to settle it not merely in the interests of education, but in the interests of the child and in the interests of the teacher, recognising all the time that between education, the child and the teacher there is what should be a common bond of sympathy and comradeship, the purpose of which ought to be to equip the child, the weak and helpless child, and especially the child who attends the national school, for the stern battle of life and perhaps the sterner battle of life which will have to be faced in the years to come by many of those attending our national schools to-day.

I plead in this matter especially for the poor child, for the child of the working-class parents, for the child who goes to the primary school knowing that that school is not only a primary school but a secondary school, and a university, so far as he or she is concerned. It represents, in the main, all the education which 90 per cent. of the school-going children of this country receive, so far as our educational system is concerned. If, therefore, the national schools are the primary schools, the secondary schools and the universities for the poor children of the country, we ought to recognise, as flowing from that, that we must give to these children the best possible education within the compass of our national school system. It is because the primary school plays such an important part in the education of 90 per cent. of our children that I think the obvious educational programme, so far as the national schools are concerned, is one which attracts the best teachers, and, having attracted the best teachers, pays them the best scales and extends to them the best possible conditions of service in these schools.

One has only to reflect for a few moments on the position which has been created by the seven months old strike to realise the havoc which has been wrought on the minds, on the sense of citizenship and the character of the children who have been away from school continuously for the past seven months. If any child were away for a period of seven months from school, it is easy to imagine and easy to measure the educational loss to that child; but we are dealing here with a problem which is a much bigger and a much wider problem than that of a single child being away from school for seven months. Not only have we 40,000 children away from school, each individually losing the education associated with seven months' attendance at school, but we have 40,000 children in a mass away from school for seven months, mingling with each other during the day, with all the evils which flow from the mass association of people who have nothing to do.

If you had a dozen children away from school for a long time, you could see the effect on their character. One has only to go to the working-class districts of this city—and I know the city well—to realise what is happening in our city to-day as a result of having approximately 40,000 children running wild for the past seven months—a challenge to education itself, a challenge to our intelligence and a challenge at once to any sense of statesmanship that may exist in this country. Every day in the week, I see these children playing on the sidewalks, many of them importuning strangers for coppers, running wild, climbing lamp-standards, electricity pylons and telephone poles, racing after lorries, trying to climb on turf lorries, jumping on drays and exposing themselves to every possible risk of life and limb. All that has been going on for seven months and yet we cannot find a means of settling a dispute which one day will have to be settled, whether we like it or not. I put it to the Taoiseach and to the Minister for Education—and I put it to them in the friendliest possible way—that the fact that this strike has continued for seven months is no tribute to education in the abstract. What we have to do is to realise that this strike has to be settled and that the sooner it is settled, the better for everybody concerned.

I have read with interest the Taoiseach's statement at the Árd Fheis and the statements he made in this House in which he said:—

"The Government has said its last word and the best thing the teachers can do is to go back to work."

I am sure the Taoiseach realises that a statement of that kind from him or any other member of the Government really means that the Government desires to beat the teachers and to get them to surrender unconditionally. I want to put this consideration to the Taoiseach: does the Government think it can afford to beat the teachers? Does the Government think it is good policy to beat the teachers in this matter? Does the Government want to regard the teachers as a defeated foe and is our standard of education such that we can view with equanimity the prospect of defeating and humiliating the teachers, with all that it implies? If that situation is brought about the worst day's work for education in this country has been done.

If you beat and defeat the teacher, what do you achieve? You merely establish the fact that the State in this matter is all-powerful, a fact which is not challenged, so far as the strength of the State is concerned. But is that all you do? Do you not do something else? Do you not do something worse? Do you not create in the mind of the teacher a feeling of humiliation, a feeling of despair, a feeling of bitterness and a feeling of frustration? If you do create these evil influences, directing and controlling the teacher's mind, are you really producing the best class of teacher by injecting into him these qualities which are the very negation of enthusiasm, these qualities which education itself ought to eradicate?

Look at the thing from another point of view. Many of the children in this city go to school up to 13 or 14 years of age, and, while they are young in years, they nevertheless, as folk who know the city well appreciate, are pretty well informed on many aspects of life—perhaps too well informed in some respects on many aspects of life. Suppose the Government beats the teachers. Suppose you send the teacher back to the school defeated and humiliated, do you think you will do well for the teacher? Do you enhance his authority with the children or improve his standing in the eyes of the children by sending him back to the school in circumstances in which the more grown-up children realise: "Ah, the teacher got it this time"? Is that the best way to inculcate respect for the teacher in the children? Is that the best way to get the children to recognise that the teacher is the dispenser of knowledge, citizenship and character? Does the Government not realise the very serious dangers which are inseparable from a situation in which they can manage to defeat the teachers, humble them before the nation and humble them before their own pupils?

I suggest to the Government that one of the things they ought to take special care about in this dispute is not to humilitate the teachers and not to make this a test of power between the teachers on the one hand and the Government on the other hand. I suggest that when all the speeches have been made by both sides, when the element of starchiness has been removed from this dispute, and when people come to look at the dispute in a calm and dispassionate way, they will recognise that some positive steps must be taken towards effecting a settlement. But there must be some effort made towards effecting a settlement. No matter how right the Taoiseach may think the Government is, I suggest to him that there is some obligation on the Government to stand back and look at this problem in a detached way and that the Government ought not to be victims of the environment which surrounds this whole dispute. They should rise above that environment and they should realise—and the nation would appreciate the realisation by them of the fact—that the main concern in this matter is to settle the dispute on terms which will be honourable to both sides and, as far as possible, satisfactory to both sides.

I suggest to the Government that this dispute can be settled in either of two ways. The first is that the matter can be submitted to arbitration or to conciliatory methods. I see no reason in the world why an ad hoc arbitration tribunal could not be set up to deal with this matter, to deal with the merits of this dispute, and to make a report to the Government on the merits of the dispute, the Government and the teachers beforehand pledging themselves to accept the report of the independent arbitration tribunal, subject to the overriding authority of this House. That at least would ensure a fair and dispassionate examination of the matters in dispute. It would ensure a sifting of the merits of the dispute and it would, at the same time, preserve the supremacy of Parliament over the public purse by making the recommendations of the arbitration tribunal subject to the overriding authority of this House.

It is not so many years ago since the Government decided to submit the very vexed question of the payment of land annuities to Britain to the adjudication of an international arbitration court. If we submitted to an outside arbitration tribunal the question as to whether this country should or should not pay the land annuities to Britain, surely there is every reason in the world why we ought to say to Irish teachers, our own kith and kin: "What we are willing to do in respect of an outside tribunal so far as the land annuities are concerned, we are willing to do with you so far as your dispute with the State in this matter is concerned." But if because of statements which have been made by the Government, and if because it is not now easy for people who made statements to retrace their footsteps, and if because of these considerations it is not possible now to consent even to an ad hoc arbitration tribunal to settle the matters in dispute, I suggest to the Government that there is another way. That other way is for the Government to recognise, as I am sure the teachers on their part will recognise, that this dispute has gone on too long and that the way in which it can best be settled is by the Government agreeing to see the executive of the teachers' organisation and discussing the matters at issue with the teachers' organisation in the hope that in that way a friendly settlement of the matters in dispute can be arranged.

If one is to judge from the utterances of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education, one would be led to believe that they are actuated by sympathy and understanding so far as the teachers are concerned. One would imagine from these statements that the teachers can be assured that in the future they will get sympathetic consideration of the matters in dispute. The real difficulty about this, of course, is that the teachers do not believe they will get a sympathetic understanding of their problems in the future, in the same way as they complained they did not get a sympathetic understanding in the past. But I am convinced, knowing how easily nerves can be frayed and how easily tempers can become ragged in an industrial dispute, that if the Government on the one hand and the teachers on the other hand were to meet in an atmosphere in which the teachers will state their case and the Government will make a serious effort to convince the teachers that what they stated in this House and at the Árd Fheis really represents the feelings of the Government, then it may be possible to create—and I believe it is possible to create—an atmosphere around the conference table which will very speedily bring this strike to an end.

I think the one thing for the Government to do is to recognise that in this matter they cannot afford to be the enemies of the teachers. They ought to recognise that the teacher and the child and the State in this matter are locked as it were in an organisation, the purpose of which is to impart to the children the maximum of education under our national school scheme. I believe that if the Government, recognising that the dispute has now continued for far too long, were to take steps to meet the executive of the teachers' organisation and to import into the discussion the friendliness of the conference table and were to make an effort to convince the teachers of their desire to ensure that justice will be done to the teachers in respect of any outstanding matter which is at present a bone of contention between the Government and the teachers' organisation, it would be easily possible to change the whole atmosphere of this dispute and to get a settlement on terms which would not leave a victor and vanquished, but would leave both sides still recognising that they had many things in common and that when the dispute was over both of them had in many respects the same goal.

As I said, the difficulty at the moment is that the teachers do not feel that in the future their grievances will be treated with understanding and sympathy. It may be that the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education will say that the teachers are not justified in that feeling. Maybe that is true. But the best way in which you can overcome that atmosphere of distrust and bitterness and resentment is for both sides to come together to have a heart-to-heart talk. I believe that if the Government can convince the teachers—and they ought to be able to do so—that they are actuated by motives of sympathy and goodwill towards the teachers, the atmosphere is there for a satisfactory settlement of this seven months old strike.

I want to finish by saying this to the Government, and to the Taoiseach and Minister for Education in particular. It is sometimes very much harder to be weak than to be strong, and in circumstances such as these it is probably easier for the Government to dig in their heels and to enshroud themselves in a kind of corrugated stubbornness and say: "We will not listen; we have been saying ‘no' for seven months and we are not going to say ‘yes' at the end of it." I appeal to the Government not to allow that attitude to influence their outlook in this matter. It is often harder to be weak than strong, and this is one of the occasions on which the Government ought to recognise that there is nobody challenging their authority to be the Government of this country, that there is no question of their constitutional right to be the Government, that this is a dispute between the teachers, on the one hand, and the Government, on the other.

I think the Government ought not to allow this dispute to continue for another day, if, by even appearing to be weak, they could bring it to a satisfactory settlement. I plead with the Taoiseach and the Government to recognise that this dispute has gone on far too long and that at this stage they ought to display sympathy, understanding and a sense of statesmanship, which alone can bring the dispute to a satisfactory end. I believe if the Government were to invite the teachers tomorrow morning to a discussion around a conference table, where the respective points of view can be stated, it should be possible to evolve a formula which could get this strike settled before the end of the week. With that possibility within our grasp, I appeal to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education to avail of this debate so as to endeavour to get a settlement of this unfortunate dispute. That settlement may well bring about a new sense of direction so far as our whole educational policy is concerned and, in any case, it will end the corroding influence of having 40,000 young children running wild around this city.

An attempt has been made to create an agitation against the Government and to suggest that they are not interested in the welfare of the children, that they do not desire to bring this situation to an end and that they are letting matters drift. That is an entirely false view. It is an entire misrepresentation of the position and of the Government's attitude. I have heard references, since the debate commenced, to "beating the teachers" and "trampling" upon them. When one is in a contest of this kind, it seems to me that, if one does not get a settlement or find some way out, one side must inevitably be beaten. If it is a question of one side or the other being beaten in this case, perhaps Deputies would advert to the position that would arise if the Government were beaten. No member of the teachers' organisation was more anxious than I was to avoid the results that I felt would accrue to the teachers and their organisation if this strike were embarked upon. I could see that it was going to damage the prestige and standing of the teachers' profession in the eyes of the country. Looking at it from that standpoint, apart from the other issues, I did everything I could to avoid a strike. I do not know whether or not the teachers had the same feeling or whether they thought that teachers are in the same position as other employees and that their strike would be just the same as a strike in any other employment. I never had any desire, and no member of the Government had any desire, to "trample upon the teachers" or to present them with a fait accompli or anything of that sort. I think the trend of events and an examination of what took place reveal that that was not the position. The teachers were met with courtesy and consideration and understanding and I challenge anybody in this debate to show otherwise. Deputy Mulcahy suggested here in the debate on the Education Estimate that the teachers were treated with a lack of consideration but when the debate was finished there was very little question about that and the House, as far as I could see, was satisfied that there was no position that the Government could take up other than the position that it did take up.

So far as the Government is concerned it is not a question of defeating the teachers. It is not a question of victimising the teachers or humiliating their organisation. No one questions the right of the teachers to have their organisation. The Taoiseach has publicly declared his belief that they, like every other section, must have their organisation in order to protect their interests. The position as it stands is, of course, very difficult. It is much easier to get into a contest of this kind—which raises far bigger issues than those who precipitated it may have considered possible—than to get out of it in such a way that we will get back to where we started with the minimum amount of damage done and I think that most people, aye, and most trade unionists, will agree with the view which was expressed upon this strike by one of our trade union representatives, a man of long experience, when he stated that the strike weapon should only be used in the last resort. "My firm conviction," he said, "after a quarter of a century's experience, is that when a body of workers go on strike they have fired their last shot. Some people believe that when workers go on strike they fire the first shot but my experience as a trade unionist is that you have fired your last shot when you go on strike."

Experienced trade union leaders with a sense of responsibility know that strikes are a costly and hazardous weapon and I believe that they would be the last to encourage the view among the members of their unions that the strike weapon is likely to achieve better results for them than discussion and negotiation between the parties. Such leaders will not call out their men if there is any worth-while alternative and if they are faced with the position that a strike has been called they will do their utmost to end it as quickly as possible, particularly if they are faced with the situation that they see very little prospect of success and that they are going to embark upon a prolonged struggle, a struggle of attrition or of exhaustion. It is one thing to hold the strike weapon in reserve and as a bargaining factor in negotiations but it is quite another matter to plunge into a struggle which is likely to be prolonged as this one has been and to involve all the resources of the party which has undertaken it. I think it must be quite clear that when this strike takes the aspect of a strike directed against the Government it becomes from this point of view nothing less than a sheer gamble, a reckless gamble one might call it, because a strike against the Government is a strike against the community. The Government represents the interests of the community. It is the guardian of those interests. The Government is the supreme authority set up by the people in the State. It is quite obvious that a strike of that nature must take on an entirely different aspect from the ordinary industrial dispute. If the Government when thus challenged were to submit to the strikers' demands, can anyone have the slightest doubt as to the ill consequences that would be bound to follow? Would not the Government's authority be weakened? Would not public confidence be shaken if not shattered? Would not the public interest have suffered material damage?

The Government has no such alternative, no such choice, as the private employer. The Government is responsible for maintaining the public services and it must protect the public interest. It would be a matter of the gravest concern if its authority were seriously weakened in the administration of these services. When a hold-up of any essential public service is deliberately undertaken by a powerful and nation-wide organisation to secure its ends, the gravity of such action is greatly aggravated. No one can have the slightest doubt about that and we have seen what can happen in such circumstances elsewhere. We have seen it on the Continent. People express grave fears as to the danger of State interference in this, that or the other, in private and personal rights. However, if the Government is no longer to be an effective authority in its own area and master in its own house, what is the position to be?

Mr. Davin

Is this for the children?

Mr. Derrig

The position is that very soon public affairs in his country, as in other countries, might be reduced to a state of chaos and confusion, once any organised body feels itself numerically, financially or politically strong enough to impose its will on the community and seeks to do so by holding up the public services.

There is another aspect of this matter. Subject to the authority of the Dáil, the Government is primarily responsible for the State financial policy and the appropriation of moneys by Dáil Éireann is made on its recommendation. The Government has the ultimate responsibility. It has been conceded, and must be conceded by every responsible Deputy, that the Government must have the final say, must be the final judge in these matters —subject, of course, to the sanction of the Dáil.

Mr. Dillon

I thought you were going to forget that this time.

Mr. Derrig

It can neither relieve itself of this responsibility nor share it with others. Therefore, if the Government were to accept the proposal in the motion, to refer matters in dispute with the teachers to another body, it would be transferring its responsibility in this matter to that other body— which is a thing the Government is not prepared to do.

Mr. Davin

He is on your side.

Mr. Derrig

The new scales were considerably better than the 1920 scales— the scales which the teachers' organisation had held up for a good many years as being their desire and what they required in the way of remuneration. The Government's proposal was reached as a result of long discussions and correspondence between myself and the teachers. We were not prepared to accept the Northern Ireland scales as a basis in these negotiations, but if we were prepared to accept them I am sure everybody would wonder why we should not accept the Northern Ireland or the British standards for every other class as well. We could not accept, and we are not prepared to accept, the principle that we must necessarily adopt as our standard what has been done elsewhere. Our attitude was and is that we must have regard to our own needs and circumstances, and in endeavouring to be fair to every section the Government must have regard to the interests of the people as a whole and to what is possible—not what we would desire, what the Government would desire, or what I would desire or what the teachers would desire, but what is possible—having regard to the public interest and the whole circumstances with which we are confronted.

As a matter of fact, if Deputies will look at the revised scales of salary which I offered the teachers and examine them they will see that, making allowance for income-tax and pension contribution which is payable in the North, they compare favourably, particularly in the case of married men, with the scales in operation there. The Northern scales are somewhat better at certain points, but not a great deal better, and at a great many other points our scales are equal or better and certainly compare favourably with them. I need not go into the figures in detail. I will simply say that, as far as our women teachers, for example, are concerned—deducting pension contributions and the appropriate income-tax in the North and making allowance for the income-tax down here—our women teachers would only have £13 less on entry and £21 less at the efficiency maximum. If they were highly efficient teachers, their maximum would be £5 greater in the North. That is the position in net cash evaluation. As far as single men are concerned, our teachers would be getting £22 less at the minimum and £56 less at the maximum for efficient and £29 less at the maximum for highly efficient, but it must not be overlooked, when referring to the pay offered to single men and comparing it with the scales elsewhere, that these scales represent a scale for men both married and single. We instituted a system of rent allowance in connection with these scales. There is no such rent allowance in the Six Counties, and if we compare the married Dublin teacher with the teacher in the North, each having two children, we shall get a fair idea of the Government's offer. The net income for the Northerner at the maximum is £469. Our teacher would receive £512 if efficient—that is in the City of Dublin. A married man with two children would be receiving £43 more than his Northern colleague, and if he were highly efficient he would be receiving £544, or £75 more. Again, the rural teacher with two children would receive, if efficient, £486 or £23 more than the Northern figure, and £521 if highly efficient—that is £52 more than his colleague. We tried to meet the special case of the Dublin teachers with a scheme of rent allowance. The rates that I have given for married men show that we gave generous recognition to family responsibilities.

What was the Government's position when I met the teachers 12 months ago almost? We had gone successfully through a very difficult emergency period. Thanks to the wisdom and good sense and discipline of our people we did not suffer a great deal, but in economic affairs what would have been our position if it were not for the Government's policy of stabilising wages, prices and profits? Fault has been found with that policy, but at any rate I think nobody can quarrel with it as being the best at the time, particularly if we are to have regard to the alternative with all its consequences of inflation, of robbery and exploitation of the poorer section of the community. Those who are of the opinion that the Government ought to have allowed matters to drift and have taken no steps to stabilise wages, profits and prices, have not considered fully what the alternatives would have been.

Then, again, when I met the teachers, the post-war position was most uncertain. No one could say definitely whether price levels were going to fall, whether they were going to fall to a considerable extent and whether, if such a fall took place, it would be sooner or later, nor could we exclude the possibility that if goods came into normal supply in a comparatively short time that there might be a very substantial fall indeed in the cost of living, such as we experienced after the last war. The factors determining future trends in world prices are beyond our control. It is quite impossible to prophesy, but in so far as we could make any assumption as to the future we had to try to make such assumption because the teachers' remuneration was not based upon a basic salary plus a cost of living bonus. It would have been impossible to institute it upon that basis at this time. It was not done originally in 1920 and we found that we had to adhere to the system of permanent scales. In examining how we were going to frame these permanent scales we had these difficulties as to what the future trend was likely to be. Does anybody contend that it was not reasonable to assume that, after some time, be it long or short, goods would come in in plentiful supply, and that the cost of living would fall?

I believe that the Government's attitude in this matter was not unreasonable or ungenerous either in regard to the terms they offered or in regard to the provision that they made for a review of the situation in three years' time. Having regard to the difficulty of fixing permanent scales in a transition period, we considered it reasonable that there should be such a review. We hoped that by the time we would have reached fairly stable conditions and that the whole matter could be re-examined in the light of fairly normal circumstances—the new scales were to come into operation on the 1st September—as to whether the scales gave sufficient compensation for the increased cost of living which, undoubtedly, bore very severely upon the salaried classes. Nobody is more cognisant of that or of the burdens that it has imposed on that particular class than the Government is, and nobody is more anxious to alleviate the situation or to remedy the difficulties under which these classes are suffering than the Government, in so far as we can do it. Therefore we agreed to this review, when the whole matter could have been re-examined in the light of the prevailing circumstances. I believe that if the cost of living position had not improved, and if there had not been a fall of consequence in the meantime, the Government would have approached such a review of the position in a sympathetic spirit.

Deputy Mulcahy suggests that this strike is about a great many other matters, that it is not about finance.

General Mulcahy

I did not say any such thing.

Mr. Derrig

If that is so the teachers' executive are greatly to blame.

General Mulcahy

I did not say any such thing. I said it included a lot of other matters with finance.

Mr. Derrig

In any case, it is quite clear because the teachers themselves have stated frequently that additional sums of money made available now would settle the question so far as they are concerned. If anybody has any doubt as to whether it was not in connection with the new scales offer that we made to them, I would refer him to the circular which was issued by the teachers' organisation and he will see it laid down very clearly:—

"You will find herewith (1) a copy of the Minister's final offer with an explanation of some points which may arise if the scales come into operation, and (2) a ballot paper on which you are to vote for or against the acceptance of the offer".

If the Deputy will permit me, I did not interrupt the Deputy, a Leas-Chinn Chomhairle, when he was speaking. The inspection system was exhaustively inquired into by a committee appointed by the then Minister for Education in 1926, called the McKenna Committee. This committee, representing the school managers and the Irish National Teachers' Organisation as well as the Minister for Education, made a unanimous report. The report, signed by Mr. O'Connell, the present secretary of the organisation, and other members of the organisation, approved of the system of rating and of additional remuneration for highly satisfactory service. It stated:—

"We consider that for various reasons unnecessary to go into that the teachers' rating of highly efficient, efficient and non-efficient, must be retained."

The recommendations of this committee were accepted by the Ministry of which Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy McGilligan were members and an appeal board was set up to hear the appeals of teachers against the inspectors' reports. The other findings of the committee were implemented subsequently in circulars and regulations published officially by the Department governing the inspection system. The changes laid down in these official documents which became the official policy safeguarded the teacher in so far as it was humanly possible to do so against injustice from the inspectors and a procedure was laid down to which the inspector must very strictly adhere.

From time to time we hear uninformed and very ill-founded reports with regard to inspectors and the inspectorial system. According to the McKenna Report, the general inspection should, as we have said, be more searching and, therefore, more satisfying and decisive for the teacher than it has been in the past. We give as a good description of what we think should be the character of such inspection in the document sent in to us by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation. Then follows an extract from the document sent in by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation:—

"The general inspection should be very thorough and fair for every class and every subject should be fully tested. The teacher should not only be given an opportunity but he should be invited to show what the children have actually done and if they display their knowledge and acquirements to the best of their ability. Before any testing of the pupils' work takes place the inspector should examine carefully the schemes of work, the weekly syllabus, the preparation of work, etc. In observing the teacher's methods and handling the teacher's class, allowance should be made for the fact that a teacher possibly will be working under a strained atmosphere due to the presence of the inspector. In testing children, needless to say, the whole object of the inspector should be to discover how much they know and how, in general, they have benefited by the instruction they have received."

These suggestions like the other recommendations of the committee, were as I have said, implemented by the Minister.

The percentage of teachers who have the highly efficient rating has steadily increased and is now 32.7 of the total teaching body. This percentage will, I believe, be admitted to compare favourably with the numbers who have reached front rank in other professions. The majority in other professions get no further than a satisfactory level of efficiency entitles them but is that any special reason for clamping down those who are specially gifted and ready and anxious to exercise their gifts? The teacher has ample safeguards in the procedure with regard to the appeal board and with regard to the method of making reports, the notice the inspector must give and so on. He must take full cognisance of the factors operating against the teacher, and, having been a teacher himself, it would be extraordinary if the national school inspector were not able to put himself and did not put himself, in the position of the teacher and ask himself what the teacher's difficulties were, what were the obstacles in the way of his performing better work when trying to assess his work and to give him a proper rating.

Deputy Mulcahy made some very extraordinary statements with regard to the Dublin schools. He referred to the "effect of the paying system upon the children." I am not quite clear as to what that means. It seemed to mean, judging by his other remarks, that, through this system, we were depriving the Dublin children of the opportunity of getting better teachers than they have at present. He said that "slum children were denied teaching quality," that "good teachers were denied to the slums." Teachers, he said, wanted to get out of these areas. My experience is that teachers want to come to Dublin, whether it be to a slum area or any other area in which they may find employment, and one of the difficulties in dealing with the problem of the Dublin teachers, the special problem, was: were we going to give further inducements to the best teachers to leave the country areas and come to Dublin, where, according to the country teachers themselves, the opportunities for education are much more widespread and much more satisfactory?

Deputy Mulcahy cannot have gone to very much trouble to probe into this question, because, if he had, he would have discovered that, while the percentage for the country as a whole is in the neighbourhood of 33, in the Dublin area, the percentage of highly efficient teachers is 47½. Therefore, 47½ per cent. of the Dublin lay teachers would be receiving the maximum scales and the teachers giving this highly satisfactory service are not confined to the better-off areas and we are not starving the slum areas, as Deputy Mulcahy suggests, of the best teachers. The contrary is the position. In ten schools nearest to the Irish national teachers' headquarters and not including the Model Schools in Marlborough Street, schools serving some of the very poorest areas in Dublin, I find that 44 teachers out of 69 have secured the highly efficient rating and no doubt some of the other 25 will eventually obtain it. Some of them must be younger teachers and a teacher is not granted this rating in the first few years. Of the 28 teachers in the infant schools in what might be described as the slum areas in question, 18 enjoy this highly efficient rating at present. So much for Deputy Mulcahy's charges and innuendoes about the way the Department of Education is ill-treating the children in these areas and not giving them the kind of education they should receive.

I do not know why it is assumed, but apparently the assumption is, that if there were no highly efficient rating, all the teachers would be paid at the rate appropriate to the highly efficient teachers' scale. Surely this assumption has no foundation. If we were to take the moneys given to roughly one-third of the teachers who are on the special scale appropriate to the highly efficient rating and divided them amongst the whole teaching body, it would not improve the general scales very perceptibly. Had there been only the ordinary normal scale for efficient work, with no highly efficient rating in question, would anybody have claimed, as seems to be the claim now, that all teachers, including those who are barely efficient and just carry out their work to the bare satisfaction of the inspectors, should be remunerated exactly the same as those who are doing the most meritorious work and who are the most gifted and highly skilled members of their profession?

If we are to have any system of assessing the work of the schools and reporting upon that work through the inspectors, must not the inspectors state whether the work is, roughly speaking, bad, good or very good? Otherwise, what will the inspectors report upon? Are managers to have no guidance when filling vacancies for principals of their schools? When candidates apply to them, are they to have no method by which they will be able to assess the teaching capacity of the applicants for the post? The avenues of promotion open to teachers are limited. I sympathise with the teachers in that. They have not got the same avenues of promotion as exist in the Civil Service, for example, but we cannot help that. Surely this system of highly efficient rating, with additional pay for meritorious work, is an alternative method of promotion. It provides recognition for superior ability and industry and is an incentive to the teacher.

As regards the difficulty of determining whether a teacher is highly efficient or not, if it is suggested that an inspector cannot evaluate that, that he would not be in a position to determine whether a teacher was efficient or non-efficient — and yet upon his judgement in that matter might depend the teacher's continued recognition or continued employment as a teacher—the fact is that the inspectors, having been teachers themselves, understand these difficulties and appreciate them. They know very well that it is the borderline cases that have to have special attention paid to them. Special attention is given to them through the system of appeals and inspection by superior officers and the inspectors are expected to give, and, I believe, do give, the benefit of the doubt, where there is any reasonable doubt in these matters, to the teacher.

I have gone into this matter at some little length because I want to show the House that this question of "highly efficient" is not as simple as is suggested, that it is a matter which requires a good deal of attention if one is to add anything of value to our present knowledge on the subject. I believe the abolition of the highly efficient rating would tend to discourage the ambitious teacher, the teacher who wants to get on and who knows he has it in him to get on and reach the top of his profession. I believe that if it were abolished it might have the unfortunate result of reducing the best among the teachers to the level of those who can barely satisfy the inspectors and barely maintain their efficiency.

Of course, there is another side to the question. The teachers can argue their own case. They have every opportunity of arguing it, but they have not raised this matter with the Department of Education in any definite manner. Despite all the topics to which Deputy Mulcahy has referred year after year in connection with the Education Estimates, I doubt if he has raised this specifically. There has been, for a few years past, a campaign against the highly efficient rating. Before that there was a campaign against the inspection system. We do not know whether these campaigns have the backing of the teaching body as a whole. But, so far as I know officially, they have not expressed dissatisfaction with the system of awarding highly efficient rates.

If the position is that the teachers can show that there are anomalies, inequalities or injustices in the procedure or in the method of determining the highly efficient rating, I am quite prepared to discuss these matters with them. I am quite prepared to try to find a solution. I think that the Government and I myself would be failing in our duty if, when it was shown to us that there are certain defects, certain anomalies, and certain ways in which the teachers are suffering, if they are suffering where they ought not to be, we did not examine into these matters. I am quite satisfied in connection with the matter of the determination of the highly-efficient rating, the method of determining the rating, to examine the question and to go into it closely—the inspectors and the representatives of the teachers to examine the question from that point of view. If it lies in my power, I am most anxious also to remove any other legitimate grievance to which they might call attention. But I am convinced that if we are to try to set about remedying these grievances there is only one reasonable course that we can follow, and that is, as in the past, to proceed by way of consultation and discussion as to what exactly the case is, to examine the case which is made and to try to find remedies, to examine the suggestions which are put forward for remedying the case, if there be a case. But I cannot see any hope whatever of progress along the present line of trying to compel the Government, through this action, to do something which they are not convinced is right or proper and in the public interests.

The teachers themselves must surely be by this time in the most advantageous position to judge this situation for themselves. Can they not see that the method of reason and argument is likely to lead to better results for them than merely following in their present course of action and persisting in it in the belief that they will ultimately defeat the Government? If they felt that in order to influence public opinion, to call public attention to their grievances, this protest was necessary, I suggest to them that the protest has surely gone far enough. Sufficient sacrifices have been demanded from the children who are the victims, and the teachers themselves have also had severe demands made upon them. Is it necessary that there should be further sacrifices? If there are, what will the result be? Will it not be the same in the long run, except that in the meantime we shall have more embitterment and we shall have more annoyance and more irritation for everyone concerned, particularly those immediately concerned in this unfortunate dispute, and those who are suffering?

Might I suggest that the Government would contribute substantially to a settlement of this dispute if they agree to meet the teachers in the spirit in which the Minister has concluded his speech? Leave out the conditions and leave both sides perfectly free to discuss the matter with a view to reaching an amicable settlement. That is all that is asked. That is a valuable contribution which could be made to a settlement of this dispute. Perhaps the Minister or the Taoiseach will indicate that it is possible to get a discussion on that basis?

The Taoiseach

Is the debate to continue?

Mr. Blowick

Is there no answer to Deputy Norton's suggestion?

The Taoiseach

If this was the last of the debate, I would say the last word, and it would be the last word of the Government; but if the debate is to continue, I do not see why it should be said now.

Mr. Blowick

I was anxious to make a proposal, but, if the Taoiseach and the Minister agree to Deputy Norton's suggestion, I will not speak at all.

The Taoiseach

I intend to speak at a later stage in this debate. I do not know whether, if I were to speak now, I would be debarred from speaking again.

General Mulcahy

Certainly; we can speak only once in this debate.

An Ceann Comhairle

Only one speech can be made.

Mr. Blowick

I think every member of the House, regardless of Party, is very anxious to see the dispute in this city coming to an end. There is a very dangerous situation in the making. We have 40,000 children in the city who have been without education for seven months. That has created a gap in their education that cannot possibly be bridged.

I would be the very last to introduce anything that would bring about heat in this debate. I rise merely to offer a suggestion that might, perhaps, have a good effect. I was very glad to observe three points in the speech of the Minister for Education. One of his points is that he does not exactly close the door; the door is still open. He has mentioned that on a few occasions. Another point is that he does not want a situation to arise in which there will be the victors and the vanquished. He does not want to humiliate the teachers if they go back. Such a thing would be disastrous and the Minister does not want that situation. I am glad that the Minister is open to conciliation or mediation. He says the Government are the guardians of the taxpayer, and rightly so. We are behind him in that.

Early in the dispute—and this is a fact that no speaker has mentioned— His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin very kindly offered to intervene in order to bring about a settlement. That offer was rather discourteously refused. I cannot understand why it was refused. I think if he were allowed to act as arbitrator between the teachers' executive on the one hand and the Minister on the other, his ruling would be fair. I do not see what the Minister has to fear from his intervention. The Minister need not fear that it will be partial to the teachers' organisation; he need not fear that he will make a ruling that would embarrass the Government in this or in future matters.

At this late hour I ask the Minister to reopen that door. He said on two occasions that the door is open to a settlement. That is one proposal that will be acceptable to the teachers, to the members of this House and to the people generally, regardless of whether it may be thought the teachers are already underpaid or overpaid. That is one way out of the difficulty. The Minister has gone almost so far as to say—if I have not misunderstood his words—that he would extend the present offer.

Mr. Derrig

No.

Mr. Blowick

Anyhow, the whole tone of the Minister's speech has been that he is anxious to see an end of the dispute. I believe he is perfectly genuine in that. We are all anxious for a settlement, and the parents and even the children themselves are anxious. If the strike continues, as it may—God forbid that it will continue much longer—it will, I believe, lead to an increase in crime in this city that it might not be easy to deal with four, five or six years from now, when the children who are now deprived of education will reach manhood or womanhood.

I believe that the teachers did wrong in going out on strike. I believe they dragged down their profession very much. It is an exalted profession. Rather than say anything that might, perhaps, injure any attempt at a settlement, I ask the Minister again to approach His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin and ask him to act as mediator. I am sure the Archbishop's ruling will be acceptable. If it is suggested that the teachers will be sufficiently paid with the Government's offer, I have no doubt the teachers will accept that. I am sure he would not make a ruling that would not be acceptable to all the parties concerned. That is one way out of this difficulty. The Minister need not be afraid that His Grace will be partial. He would not be so un-Irish as to make any ruling that would embarrass the Government either in this matter or any other matter that might arise in the future. That is my contribution to the debate.

Mr. McGilligan

Metaphors are dangerous things and I want right at the start to try to get my own mind clear as to what the Minister has said, if he has said anything which I did not understand of a conciliatory type towards the teachers. I have been listening to the last speaker. He said that the Minister on two occasions indicated that the door is open. So it is, but I interpreted the Minister as saying that the door is open for the teachers to go back to work on the old terms. Is that any advance? Is there any advance other than that from the Minister? I want to be clear on this so that I may not later be accused of misquoting or misunderstanding the Minister. As I understand it, that is the situation—the door is open so that the teachers may return to their schools on the terms that obtained before they went out.

Is that what is offered in the way of conciliation? In any event, I know one door has been slammed, the door I approached in this motion, in suppliant mood, asking the Government not to give in to the teachers, not even to have a board of arbitration, but to have something in the nature of conciliation and mediation. Those are the terms of the motion before the House:

"That the Dáil is of opinion that the long-continued closing of schools in the City of Dublin is a grave source of moral danger and educational loss to the children..."

Will anybody deny that that is the fact?

"...a grave source of moral danger and educational loss to the children..."

Have distracting problems been created for parents? That, in any event, was the foundation of the motion that I put my name to for discussion in the House to-night. I am asking the Dáil to accept those two things indicated in the motion. I am asking the Dáil to vote that a conciliation committee be set up, consisting of representatives of the Government, the managers, the teachers, and of the Dublin School Attendance Committee. To do what?

"...to consider and make recommendations with a view to terminating the present dispute and bringing about the immediate reopening of the schools."

There is not one word about money in that motion; there is nothing in it which would mean that the Government had committed themselves to give more money to the teachers if they accepted the motion. They are asked to indulge in what is now so internationally favoured, mediation and conciliation, instead of battling things out. I must say that I find myself annoyed to-night by the temperraising and somewhat humiliating experience suffered by a person when he approaches a door as I have approached it, and finds the door slammed in his face. It is not a pleasant experience to stand on a doorstep when you are in such a mood and be treated in such a way. I find myself not as lonely on that doorstep as one might otherwise find oneself when a door has been slammed in one's face. When I look around the same doorstep, I find myself rubbing shoulders with His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, on whom the door was also slammed. and the representatives of many Church bodies who have appealed in a suppliant way to the Government to do something to end this conflict which is working so much harm in the City of Dublin. I find myself in company with many persons in all sorts of prominent positions who have publicly committed themselves in favour of the teachers in letters to the Press, speeches at different societies and by proposing resolutions at gatherings of all sorts, representative of many conditions of the populace. When I find myself amongst so many eminent people who have come out into the open in support of the teachers, I wonder why it is they have not been swayed by the arguments of the reactionary paper which the Minister read here to-night in defence of his point of view in this matter.

If the Minister has so good a case as he would have the Dáil believe by his speech to-night, why should he not welcome a conciliation committee? Where better could he parade his arguments than before a group of people selected by this House for the purpose of bringing about mediation and with the main objective of ending this strike and getting the schools reopened? If his arguments are good, let the Minister repeat them to a select body. From the room from which I have been excluded by the slamming of the door, I hear only a sort of echo of two or three phrases—"the last word", "master in our own house""effective authority" and "a government must govern". These words ring with a funny echo through the House as if there were very few in the room from which the phrases are being so loudly shouted. On the doorstep, somebody amongst that eminent body must have a constitution. In the preamble to the Constitution, we read:—

"Seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of prudence, justice and charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations."

Prudence, justice and charity. Are they present in the Minister in his attitude towards the parents of the children who are suffering in this case? I pass to Article 45, where the preamble is taken up again in the directive principles of social policy which were to guide all our endeavours in this House:

"The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the whole people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice and charity shall inform all the institutions of the national life."

In face of that, why do we persist in mouthing those phrases about the Government's power, about being masters in our own house, and about the last word? Why must the Government tie themselves by their dignity or by what they think their dignity is or by what their dignity forces them to do? If the last word has been said to the teachers, even on the sordid matter of money, can we be informed in this House to-night who advised the Government when this "last word" was spoken or if the Government, and particularly the Minister for Education, dealt with the matter, as if education were a sort of nationalistic enterprise, in the way the Minister for Industry and Commerce would deal with a strike in the industrial alcohol factories? Was the last word spoken in the light of what the State could afford in relation to what, for example, it was paying to other people? Did no consideration arise as to education being something social, something which removes those who engage in it to a level somewhat above even that of the ordinary industrial worker, with his rights and dignity as a human being? Who advised the Government? Did any theologian instruct them? Did anybody who knows the principles and philosophy of education tell them how these considerations should be weighed in the balance? Did anybody instruct them on the question of the dignity of the human individual, the human individual in this case being the teacher, with the peculiarly important function which he has to play in the State? Did anybody instruct them even in the economics of the whole situation? Did anybody tell the Government that—if they have not realised it, everybody else has—as a result of the impact of rising prices and the close-down on wages, people are being paid nominally in pounds but actually in half-sovereigns? When the last word was being spoken were all these things brought into review? If they were not, should they not be reviewed now? If they were, why should we not be told that they were? Why should we not hear the weight of the argument along all these lines, so that we should know that it is not a case of the Government sticking to its pride and dignity but that there is something solid and real in the offer the Government made?

I wonder if the Government would consider the matter from this point of view. Apparently, they will not have conciliation; they will not have any minds but their own brought to bear on this problem. Is it right that that should be done? Suppose some public-spirited citizen summoned a meeting of a group of the type suggested in this motion. Suppose that group met, considered this problem and pronounced upon the matter. Would the Government feel in any way shaken by the fact that people who had given the matter serious consideration thought that the teachers' position was such they deserved greater emoluments than they were getting? Suppose I ask the Government to have, not a committee got together haphazard outside, but a committee packed by the Government. Let the Government see that the group who will discuss this matter will be people who will have prominently before their minds the sort of consideration which they feel should be very definitely emphasised in any decision in this matter. Let us get some body from amongst the more depressed classes of this community—some body which would represent, say, the agricultural labourer's mind, the man who, because he has been so far depressed, may, possibly, envy the teachers in their pre-strike position. Let them get some body which is not only conscious of but paralysed by the thought of the impact upon the public mind of any further grant to the teachers.

Put that man on your committee as a second man. Load your committee any way you like with the people who will have foremost in their thoughts the viewpoints that you will want to have emphasised and put on one man, like His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, who will know what a just wage is, who will know what Catholic principles are on this matter of payment, who will bear in his mind, when coming to a decision, the impact of anything he may do upon the public finances, who will be a responsible citizen able to give full weight to all those antagonistic considerations that have so weighed with the Government. Give the teachers that committee and let that committee pronounce and I believe they will be satisfied. I believe the teachers would require for their satisfaction that there should be one man who could listen to, appreciate and, if he found it possible to do, beat down the arguments of the type the Minister has put before us. But the Government are in this dilemma. If they believe what the Minister has said here to-night, which is a mere recapitulation of all that has been said over the seven months, why not get that argument sanctioned and finished for ever by the word of such a conciliation committee as we seek to set up? If they do not, is then their only excuse: "We believe that justice to the teachers demands more pay but justice, (1) will set a bad example to other depressed people in this community, and (2) no matter what justice demands, we cannot afford to pay." If it is the first—and I believe that is the thing that weighs with the Government—I suggest to them a just verdict on a meritorious case can never be a bad example. If it is the second, that their attitude just simply is, "Whether justice demands or not, we cannot pay; we cannot ask the citizens to bear more," then at that point the question of priority will arise.

One thinks of the Army, the drive there was for recruits, the failure to get them and then, suddenly, several months ago we were told that no more money could be found for all the matters that the Government said so definitely engaged their interests— increase in old age pensions, payments to pensioners of different types, increased wages to agricultural labourers, more money for the teachers. There was not a penny more to be exacted from the community, but when the recruits failed to come in, we found the money. Where is the priority from the point of view of justice? Do we think so little of education and so much of the armed forces of this country in time of peace that we can find for the Army what we say it is impossible to find for the teachers?

Finally, have we not advanced any distance from the year 1891? In that year the earliest one of a great number of Encyclicals was written, the Encyclical which had for its theme the reconstruction of the social order, the Encyclical whose objective was that in a chaotic sort of world—nothing like as chaotic as the present situation—men should seek and should strive to attain a better situation by mediation, by conciliation, and not by two parties fighting it out, locked in a grip, where one must be the victor and one must lose. Forty years later that was rewritten and reconstructed a little to meet the difficulties that had arisen in the 40 years. Here are we, in 1946, and the only thing the Minister for Education can tell us is that he has said his last word and we do not know the foundation, we do not know the reasons, that moved him to say what he puts forward as his last word, but there it is. The authority of the Government, apparently, is going to be weakened. By what? By a group of men meeting and listening to the Minister's arguments and telling the teachers afterwards: "The Minister has convinced us his reasons are good and you must return to your schools." The Government will not even have that. They will not run that risk because, of course, the chance is that the committee listening to the Minister might think as little of his arguments as the populace in the last seven months have thought of them and it would be awkward if the Government found itself faced with a report from such a body as we ask to have set up saying that the teachers were entitled to more than they have got even though it might not be the full amount of their demands.

I do ask the Government in a suppliant way to let a conciliation group meet. It may be that they will say that the teachers are too well paid in the new offer that was made to them. It may be that they will say that they are at least as well paid as the State can afford at this time. They may say: "We think the teachers have a claim but it is better to postpone it for two years until we can see if the happy optimism of the Minister is justified and that prices will be lower and the money we are getting at the moment will have a greater purchasing power than what it is thought it will have." They may say any number of these things but they will at least have, either openly before the public or behind closed doors, deliberated over what the Government have to say in defence of their offer and what the teachers have to say against it.

I ask the Minister, is there any loss of dignity in their asking that a body should meet to consider their wisdom, their justice and their charity in the way in which they have met the teachers? I think this House would promise—it could be promised certainly on behalf of this Party—that if that group asked the Government to make further efforts for the teachers even though it meant further taxation, there would be no clamour against the necessity for taxation. I think the promise could be made by all Parties in this House that this matter would not be allowed to enter into politics and that no political capital would be made out of the fact that the Government, after holding out so long, yielded to reason when reason was put before them by a group such as I suggest. I cannot see why this motion should not be met in a sympathetic way. I see no reason why it should be turned down and I ask the Government, if the Minister did pretend to hold the door open, to hold it open to those who moved this resolution and to set up the little committee we ask for.

Mr. O'Rourke

I intend to say only a few words. I am in a rather peculiar position, perhaps. I am a national teacher, a member of the teachers' organisation and at the same time a Deputy of the Government Party. Anything I say is intended rather to throw oil on the troubled water than otherwise. I have been for a very long time a teacher, and I quite agree with Deputy Mulcahy and other speakers that we have had very grave grievances. For almost a century the teachers were in a position of slavery, on slave wages. The first sign of dawn that we saw was in the new scale of salaries in 1920. There were perhaps odious conditions attached to those salaries as, some people say, there are attached to the present scale of salaries, but I should like to remind some of the Deputies who have spoken that these salaries were in operation only two or three years when a cut of 10 per cent. was imposed. At that time, unless I gravely mistake, some of the very men who have spoken were in office as the Government or in the Government Party. I cannot very well understand how it is that they are now so anxious or why when they first imposed those cuts they did not seek that mediation and conciliation which they are so anxious to get now. I am quite cognisant of the many grievances that even yet the teachers suffer from. Before this strike took place I did whatever I could as a mediator between the teachers' organisation and members of the Government. I think I met with a little success and I thought at one stage that the claims of the teachers in the main were being met and I had very strong hopes at one stage that at least as far as the financial considerations were concerned we were arriving at a settlement. However, things took a different turn and as the Minister has pointed out, a certain line of action was taken by the teachers' organisation and a strike took place. I speak now as one who voted against the strike and I have no apology for that. I believe I was right then and I believe I am right yet. However, I am a member of the teachers' organisation and I have acted as one loyal to the obligations. It gives me no pleasure as a member of the Government Party to see the strike continuing and I do hope that as a result of this discussion we will come nearer to a settlement. The Minister has gone a good distance. I may say that I met him on various occasions in conjunction with other members of this Party and members of the teachers' organisation and I found him indeed most sympathetic. On several occasions the offer to the teachers was increased, but there were some points, apart altogether from the sum involved, where the Minister did not agree with the points put up by the teachers.

My main object in speaking here this evening is to ask both the teachers and the Government to try to arrive at a settlement. I do not think the Government is inclined to accept outside mediation and I think they are probably right, as that would not meet the situation. They have responsibility as a Government and I do not see how they could accept outside mediation, but surely there is no reason why both teachers and Government could not meet? Assuming that the teachers go back and the Government give an undertaking to discuss all possible aspects of the teachers' grievances, there does not seem to be any reason why a solution cannot be reached. I have met quite a good number of teachers recently and they point out a number of grievances, apart altogether from the question of finance. With some of these points I have sympathy but in other cases I have not. We have had different points of view, but whatever differences there might be between the teachers and the Government they could be met.

I do not intend to speak at length, but I speak here just as one who would like to see this dispute settled. I do not think the Government will accept the motion before the House and I do not think they could, to be candid. The proposed body would be cumbersome and would relieve them of responsibility. However, in the near future, if not to-night, the Government can give some undertaking to the teachers to discuss all outstanding matters with them. If they do that, I have not the least doubt that these things will be settled all right. I know that the teachers who are on strike and teachers in the country are fairly well tried of the strike. They do not want it, nor do the parents or the children. No one wants this strike and, therefore, I suggest that, assuming this motion is disposed of, the Government and the teachers can make a move in the direction I suggest and resume the negotiations they have had in the past. I have a great deal of sympathy with the teachers. I have met a number of individual Cabinet Ministers and find a great deal of sympathy amongst them. They do not want the strike, but they consider their authority is being challenged. Assuming that the teachers go back, I feel they will get sympathetic treatment; and as far as I can—I do not say I can move the Government very much—I am always prepared, as a member of that body and as a representative, to help towards an amicable settlement—which will be brought about soon, please God.

Dr. O'Higgins

If the Taoiseach would like to intervene at this point, I would give way. It would be helpful towards the course of the debate if he did speak at this point.

The Taoiseach

I do not know whether what I am going to say will be helpful or the reverse. When I saw this motion, I did not have much hope that it would help matters, and I felt it was quite possible that the contrary would be the effect. Deputy Dillon gave us a very valuable warning and I hope I will keep his words in my mind as well as I can. There is grave danger, in a case like this, that tempers may become frayed. It is very hard to be in the position of "dogs tied, stones loose" all the time. We have tried over the whole period to say little about this dispute and to point out strongly the aspects of it as seen by the Government. We did that deliberately. We suffered all sorts of misrepresentations, precisely because we did not want to disturb what I hope may be the future relations between the teachers and the Department responsible for education. Deputy Dillon's words of warning are rather important. Perhaps we could add to them the words spoken recently by Mr. Gandhi, who pointed out that we lose some years of our lives if we allow our tempers to become frayed unduly.

The position in regard to this matter is that we have refrained from putting to the public the case as the Government sees it, for the reasons I have stated, whereas the other party to the dispute has been quite at liberty to put the case from their angle. As usually happens in any case, the Government is a fair butt; it can be attacked; we can be held responsible for the strike, for the harm done to the children; and the public—at least the vocal public— never thinks of turning the other way and asking: "What about the other party to the dispute?" It was not we who caused the strike; we did not shut out the teachers; we did not say: "There is to be an end to negotiations."

It was the other way round. The Minister went to the teachers in the first instance, after discussion with the Government and considering the whole financial situation. We had to consider the national position as a whole, the situation we would be faced with in the future, with the cost of living having gone up during the war and salaries having been pegged down. We came to the conclusion that £1,000,000, representing over a 30 per cent. increase, was a fair beginning in dealing with this complex problem, of which that was only going to be the first step. There were even more pressing cases than that of the teachers. I am quite willing to admit that the case of all those on middle-scaled salaries is a pressing one, as they had to suffer very severely during the war. However, they have had one thing, together with the teachers, in that they have been able to retain their positions and get what was going, when many other people have been put out of employment and have had to seek a livelihood outside the country altogether. They managed to exist under the conditions which prevailed and managed to keep body and soul together, but other people had to go out of this country in order to do that.

We realised that those on the middle-scale salaries were badly hit during the war and that a very critical situation would arise in the adjustment period; but we realised also that there were people still worse off. It was not simply a question of an addition of £1,000,000 to the £3,250,000, which is over 30 per cent. We would have to deal with the old age pensioners' grievances, with the Civil Service and a large body of public servants, where there was considerable complaint about their position. They could even claim that they had suffered more, because on account of the extraordinary situation in which we found ourselves the State had to deal with the position by checking the automatic rise in their salaries which would have taken place. We realised that it was not going to be a case of £1,000,000 but of several millions. If you take the Supply Services and calculate what a 30 per cent. increase would mean in the case of all these you will soon see what a sum of money would have to be got from the public in the way of taxation. We in the Government could not deal with this as an isolated problem. We came to the conclusion that in all probability prices would settle down. We hope they will settle down at something less than a 50 per cent. increase, but we do not know. In the case of salaries of this kind you cannot depress them, so that we had to move cautiously. In the case of the teachers we gave them priority and we thought that a 30 per cent. increase—by giving them £1,000,000—was a very fair offer. We said to them that the proposal would be open for reconsideration when things got a bit normal.

The Minister, having consulted the Government, went and met the teachers. He made this proposal to them and they turned it down flat. He discussed this matter with them for a few months. They made some proposals. He came back to the Government and asked for another £150,000. I must say that, about that period, I myself—and I am speaking for myself—lost heart in the possibility of getting any agreement with the teachers because the word "strike" was in the air. The word "strike" was actually in a communication. It was taken out afterwards, but I was convinced myself at that particular period that the word "strike" being in the air strike action was going to follow unless we gave the whole of their demands. However, we gave way in the Cabinet, and the Minister got another £150,000. He went back and talked to them again, and again they turned it down flat. He came back a third time although the Cabinet in the first offer made what they considered to be as generous an offer as the situation warranted them in making. Deputy McGilligan talked about some of these things. One would imagine that he had the same view as that which was expressed at our Árd-Fheis when he said that the pressure on the pen would be the same in writing £1,500,000 as in writing £1,000,000. That sort of thing gets us nowhere. It ought not appeal to sensible men. It is obvious, in all these cases, that the moment you put taxation of a certain sort on the community it is going to have reactions of various kinds, and in the interests of the community you ought not to be driven beyond your own judgment. At any rate the Minister went back again to the teachers with a further offer of £100,000. That is, that after this discussion £250,000 had been added to the £1,000,000. In other words, the offer was to be increased by no less than 25 per cent. The £1,250,000 represents an increase on the existing scales they had in 1938 of something like 40 per cent. That was not a bad beginning—to say to those who had fixed salaries that they were going to get a step up towards meeting the situation which represented an increase of 40 per cent. I think that if 40 per cent. was added straight off to the salaries of everyone in the country they would not regard themselves as having been unfairly met.

At this stage I became more convinced than ever that the word "strike" was going to mean strike action. I told the Minister at the time that he need not come back for any more, that the £1¼ million was all that we were going to give. As I say, it represented an increase of 40 per cent. In view of the situation as a whole, I told the Minister that naturally every other section could look for similar increases—what was done in the case of the teachers was also going to be demanded by other sections of public servants. The Minister was told, quite independent of that imperative demand, to go back with that final offer and get done with it. We told the Minister and told the teachers, therefore, that they had got their final offer, and it was on that monetary offer, dealing with salaries and emoluments, that the strike took place.

Now, we did not cause the strike. I am not going to say, and have not ever heard, that the strike is not a legitimate weapon in the sense that, if a person feels sufficiently strong and that his interests demand it, he shall not use it. But remember, there must be some counter to that because if not it is quite obvious that every section of the community is going to get its demands—unless, as I say, there is something to counter the strike. What is to counter the strike? The resistance of the party opposite who is going to be adversely affected. In this case the resistance was coming from the Government as representing the community. We had to represent the community interest as against the sectional interest, and that is the part that this Parliament and the Government will always have to play. The greater the organisation of the section the more necessary is it that there should be a supreme authority that will act for the community as a whole. Deputy Dillon has given an example of where the strike could be legitimately used, where it would be necessarily used, but unless there was a reaction to it the whole thing would become absurd. You get action from one section and the reaction from the section that would be adversely affected. That occurs in ordinary commerce, in ordinary business. There is the private interest of the individual who is concerned, the owner or proprietor of the business, and the action, we will say, of the employees.

A stage is reached in which the employer can say to himself: "Very well, I cannot carry on the business; I would be carrying on at a loss and I cannot do it; I shall close down." That course, obviously, is not possible for a Government. The public service must be carried on somehow. Naturally, we have our duty to the public and to the children. If trade unionism were not organised as it is at the moment—and I understand why it has to be organised—what we would do would be immediately to advertise for teachers at the rates which we are paying and we would put them into the schools. That would be the natural reaction, to carry out our duty to the children because in this case what is happening is that the children are being held up to ransom. If there is a strike in the public service what is the point at issue? It is whether the public are to be denied these services or not. Those who want to have a successful strike, go out at what they believe to be the most successful time. You have a strike, for instance, in the public conveyance system at a time when the public can be hit most severely. That is ordinary strategy and the strategy in this case is obvious to anybody who looks at it. The principal point was: "We have got this £1,250,000; we believe we should get more." Obviously, anyone who is allowed to estimate what his own services are worth, is going to rate them at a very high figure indeed.

If there were to be conciliation in this case, the conciliation committee, who would have no responsibility, would take the easiest course, that is, give way to the demand, quite ignoring the consequences from the public point of view of what may ensue from giving way in a case like this. It is the simplest thing in the world to suggest that you should have some outside committee to negotiate and recommend. Then, of course, we are told that you can refuse to implement their recommendations. You have the nominal right to refuse but why should you set up a committee to pass judgment on a question of this kind when obviously you are competent, with the assistance of your officials, to examine the question throughly yourself?

You will naturally say: "Have we not examined it ourselves?" If there is anybody who should be interested from the point of view of, let us say, esprit de corps or association with teachers, the Minister for Education and myself would naturally be inclined to deal lightly with them—that is why the Minister for Finance came in here to watch us. Why should we say to other people who would not have anything like the knowledge the Minister for Education and his Department could have of the working of the system and who would have no responsibility for the finances: “You can come in here and decide this matter for us”? I think that that would be an obvious surrender of our duty and I do not think that anybody should ordinarily even suggest such a thing.

The Deputy will please wait until I have given these figures. £436 was the net amount at the maximum that an efficient man would get in the North. Here in Dublin the efficient teacher would get £510.

The Taoiseach must answer that question. He put that question in his speech and he must answer it.

Mr. Anthony

The time at our disposal is getting short and I understand some other speakers wish to follow me, so therefore I shall be brief.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I will then call on Deputy O'Higgins to conclude.

Mr. Byrne

So I will have no chance of getting in. At any rate, I have tried.

Mr. Anthony

I want, first of all, to congratulate Deputy O'Rourke for having established the record in this House of a Deputy who is a national teacher having the courage of his convictions. It is the first time that I heard, in this House, any national teacher advocating the claims of the teachers here. On every occasion they voted against the interests of their parent body.

The position created by this strike of the national teachers is undoubtedly a very delicate one and I think that any solution of the problem, if there is to be a solution, must be by an approach different from that suggested by other speakers. I could quote figures from public statements by members of the National Teachers' Organisation which would refute, to some extent at any rate, the figures read out by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education. There is a conflict of opinion as to the accuracy of some of those figures. Therefore I do not propose to occupy the time of the House in reading whole lists of figures.

I have a solution to offer which I feel should be acceptable to the Minister for Education and the Government generally. It may not appear to be in strict conformity with the usual trade union practice on questions such as this where a strike exists. I can speak with some authority as an Independent Deputy for many years and also as a trade unionist for many years. I can speak possibly with a greater and more varied experience of trade union matters than any other Deputy here, whether he sits on the Government Benches, the Fine Gael Benches or on any section of the Labour Benches. It is an experience which has been gained not alone here but on the other side of the Channel. I hope it will not be said that this suggestion departs in any way from the spirit behind the trade union movement. I am prepared to accept any kind of adverse criticism that may be offered to me. I will take all the brickbats that are flying around; possibly I will not be presented with many bouquets.

My suggestion is one that differs in some respects from the suggestion made by Deputy O'Rourke, that the teachers should be asked to resume duty in view of the terrible tragedy—I can call it by no other name—that we are witnessing in the City of Dublin, where there are 40,000 boys and girls of tender years running about the streets half-wild, as was described by some Dublin Deputies this evening. I suggest the teachers should go back. I know it will be a severe ordeal for them to go back, but they will not go back defeated. Victory or defeat should not enter into the minds of the teachers or the Government. I think that view has been expressed by the Taoiseach and the Minister. There will be no such thing as victory or defeat. I think the teachers can go back with honour, on one condition. Now, it is not a very difficult condition for the Taoiseach or the Minister to accept. Perhaps the Taoiseach or the Minister for Education will indicate to us that he is prepared to discuss with the teachers their various problems, problems which have arisen and that are still there, problems that have been the cause of this strike.

I am not authorised by any section in this House or by the teachers, with whom I have had no contact whatsoever, to take up the attitude I am taking up. I have not been authorised by any teacher, by any Deputy, or by any member of the Government Party, but I feel somebody must do something in this dispute between the teachers and the Government. I ask the Minister, if the teachers resume duty on this day week, will he be prepared to meet them, as he almost indicated in his peroration this evening? His statement gave me a little hope and that is why I put this suggestion to him. He said he was prepared to discuss anything that he was reasonably and fairly asked to do. I am now asking him fairly and reasonably to do something. I am suggesting something on my own behalf, not authorised to do so by anybody. Will the Minister consider the suggestion I have made and intimate to the teachers to-morrow or the day after that he will be prepared, if they resume duty, to discuss with them the problems which brought about this strike?

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

I promise not to take up too much of the time allocated to Deputy O'Higgins, but I would like to have an opportunity of expressing my views in this matter. When the very valuable intervention of Deputy Norton was about to bear fruit and when it was decided that the discussion should continue, I feared that the atmosphere which that intervention had created would be entirely destroyed by subsequent discussion. I am glad to say that has not been so; not even the intervention of the Taoiseach has damaged the position in any way.

We had a prolonged discussion on this particular question, on every aspect of it, last May. There is practically no aspect of the situation that was not then touched upon. I am bound to say that the atmosphere in which we are discussing the position to-night is entirely different. I feel that there is something in the atmosphere to-night which suggests conciliation. Advantage should be taken of that to stop the tragedy which we have been witnessing for the past seven months in the City of Dublin. The fact has been stressed that 40,000 children are roaming the streets. Unless something is definitely done here to-night, is that picture likely to be altered? A couple of aspects of the position must, in the light of statements made, particularly by the Minister for Education, be adverted to in coming to the conclusion to which I shall later refer. The Minister advanced the proposition that, simply because the teachers were State servants, strike action was completely outside their right. I should like to refer to the position of the State servant and it is about time that his position was understood both in this House and throughout the country. If you take a person into the employment of the State and shut him out from all conciliation and arbitration, then he may be subjected to the most tyrannical form of employment it is possible to envisage. Hence, it is that the Government is engaged in devising machinery for conciliation or arbitration so far as State servants themselves are concerned. In my judgment, this situation would never have arisen if the machinery now contemplated for the Civil Service had been in operation in the case of the teachers last March. That is the fundamental cause of all the trouble. There was a break between the Minister and the teachers and, human nature being what it is, they drifted apart and the gulf got wider. The argument by the Minister regarding State servants does not hold so far as teachers are concerned, having regard to the setting up of a labour court and to the proposed introduction of conciliation machinery for the Civil Service.

A good deal of play has been made regarding the grading "highly efficient". The Taoiseach has advanced appreciably to-night. I feel certain that the teachers will appreciate that advance. There are three main lines of division between the teachers and the Government. These questions refer to the category "highly efficient", the question of women teachers as against unmarried male teachers and the question of the classification of the different schools. These are the three burning questions. I was more than interested to hear the remarks of the Taoiseach to-night. I hope I have not misunderstood him and that I shall not misquote him. He made a pronouncement which will be received with particular pleasure by the lady teachers—that he stands for fair treatment so far as they are concerned.

The Taoiseach

When the social consequences are fully examined.

Mr. O'Sullivan

The main point was that he paid tribute to the type of work they were doing and could see no difference between it and that carried out by the unmarried male teachers. As regards the categories, there is only one outstanding major question and that is the question of "highly efficient". No matter what figures may be adduced to show the necessity for maintaining that distinction, the fact remains that it has been abolished in Northern Ireland. It is not in operation in England either. It must be admitted that there is a constant factor in the number with that classification and that it remains around 30 per cent. The inherent difficulty in the approach to his whole question on the part of the Government is that too much emphasis has been laid on the contention that the teachers have got to accept what is known as their "scales of salary", as set out in the final offer. The Government have said: "There are your scales of salary and you will not get a penny more; you have got to accept them." On the other hand, you have the readiness of the Government, as expressed here to-night, to negotiate on major questions of controversy which mean so much to the teachers—the highly efficient grading, the position of the woman teacher and the question of the classifications.

Let us not fool the teachers, the public or this House. If the Government are prepared to discuss these questions with the teachers, unless a pre-determined decision has been reached that nothing will be done, there will be additional outlay. If the Government are open to reasonable argument on any of these three points, then the implementation of the resulting decision will involve extra expenditure. The Government have tied themselves up in this position: they say to the teachers: "There are your scales and there will be no increase." On the other hand, they say that they are prepared to deal with these outstanding problems. I suggest that the Government should be prepared to act on the suggestion of Deputy Norton. There is a feeling of goodwill and understanding to-night that was not in evidence on previous occasions. I suggest that negotiations be opened up in a broad and generous way. Given understanding, good feeling and goodwill, I venture to say that not many days, not to speak of weeks, would pass, if this were done, until our schools would be in full operation again.

Dr. O'Higgins and Mr. Byrne rose.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy O'Higgins.

Mr. Byrne

I have been trying to get in during the whole day. The strike is in Dublin and my constituency is more affected by it than other constituencies.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy O'Higgins may, if he so desires, give way to the Deputy for a few minutes. I am calling on Deputy O'Higgins to conclude.

Dr. O'Higgins

I should not mind giving way for a few minutes to Deputy Alfie Byrne but, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is aware, I have been giving way since 7 o'clock. However, I agree to give way for a few minutes.

Mr. Byrne

I do not wish to take up much of the time allotted to Deputy O'Higgins nor do I wish to take up the time of the House. I merely wish to join with Deputy Anthony in the plea he has made to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Education. I was encouraged when the Minister for Education gave us to understand that he was prepared to discuss with the teachers at any time the question of "highly efficient" and the categories of which they are complaining.

Then, I was encouraged by the statement of the Taoiseach that, when the salaries were offered, that offer, and the general conditions, were open to discussion at a future date. Perhaps my interruption was not fully appreciated when I said "three years". The Taoiseach may not know that, attached to the present offer to the teachers, was the condition that this provision regarding "highly efficient" and the categories was to last for three years. The teachers were, therefore, required to accept all these things for three years without any possibility of the matter being considered within that period. To-night he has led us to believe that he was prepared to consider that and I believe by the Taoiseach's statement that when he said the matter could be considered at any period, he did not intend that they were to wait three years.

The Taoiseach

I do not want to be either misunderstood or misrepresented. I was speaking about the matter when the Deputy interrupted, making some point about a shorter period. The period was three years.

Mr. Byrne

I am merely making a further appeal, with Deputy Anthony, that the definite period of three years should be withdrawn and that in the ordinary way, when the Budget comes before the House or when the Education Estimates are under discussion, we should get an opportunity of considering it. I also interrupted in connection with junior assistant mistresses. Is it true that there are upwards of 500 junior assistant mistresses in the City of Dublin in receipt of salaries of £3 a week, paying £2 a week for lodging and trying to dress and keep themselves on £1? When the Taoiseach was comparing Northern Ireland with Southern Ireland from the point of view of pension rates and when he said that we pay the pension contribution, he did not say that the teachers in Northern Ireland get a gratuity of 18 months' salary and that in more than one case the gratuity is as much as £800. If all these things were taken into consideration and if the Minister were to give Deputy Anthony a word of encouragement and would promise to consider these matters, I believe the teachers, with all possible goodwill, would resume duty and give the 40,000 children in Dublin the rights to which they are entitled under the Constitution.

Dr. O'Higgins

May I, concluding this debate, give expression to a mild protest against the way the debate has been handled by Government speakers as against the manner in which it has been handled by the rest of the House? Deputies from every other section of this House, right through the course of this debate, were particularly careful not to dwell in any detailed way on the issues which were in dispute, not to use the debate this evening to misrepresent the Government's attitude, or the Government's offer or the Government's suggested scales but, in view of the very appalling situation that exists in the City of Dublin, to concentrate exclusively on the necessity for reopening the schools, no matter who was wrong or who was right. There is no use in this quibbling as to who fired the first shot. The only big man in a situation like this is not the man who begins the row but the man who is big enough to end it. We had from the Taoiseach as clever a bit of special pleading as ever was heard. It struck me when I was listening to him—and I say it with no personal disrespect—that it was easily seen why politicians using figures attract the disrespect of the ordinary plain, simple, honest man. We had the old special presentation of the position here vis-á-vis the position in the North of Ireland. We had the Taoiseach introducing that particular argument by saying that you could not in the issue in question take into account the appallingly high cost of living, because that was purely temporary, that was purely a war situation, and that consequently it was not relevant and should not be taken into account. The cost of living having been dealt with by a wave of the Taoiseach's arm, because it was only a war situation and only temporary, we then had this old misrepresentation, the old bit of special pleading that was tried previously by the Minister for Finance in order to blacken the teachers' case, to make them appear to be unreasonable. We had salaries here and salaries in the North compared, but compared according to what scale? According to the scale of income-tax paid in the North and paid in Great Britain, as if that war income-tax were a normal and permanent feature of life in the North and in Great Britain. That war income-tax is far less permanent than the excessively high cost of living here but there must always be two heads on the coin the Taoiseach tosses. “On the scales that were fixed 22 years ago, are we told that it is unreasonable to give a 30 per cent. increase now?”

That would be a fair argument if the rates were reasonable and the rates were fair and just in 1938. There was as much discontent in 1938 as there is in 1946 but loyalty and patriotism and a spirit of sacrifice kept all that silenced and smothered during the war but the teachers, if they got a 30 per cent. increase in 1946, on rates fixed in 1922, are setting an unreasonable headline to the nation.

The teachers are not the only people whose circumstances and whose views changed over such a long period. In 1931 the Taoiseach and his colleagues considered that £1,000 a year was more than sufficient for the work they were doing as Government Ministers.

Mr. D. Morrissey

They were right.

Dr. O'Higgins

And a few years later they did not take an increase of 30 per cent., or 40 per cent., or 50 per cent., but an increase of 75 per cent. with a pension for themselves, their widows, and children under a certain age. What capital sum would that represent? I am pointing out these things in order to bring back a sense of balance. There are two sides to every question but the side that should be present before all our minds is the necessity for ending this thoroughly tragic and unfortunate state of affairs. Listening to the Minister, one would say that the voice of Gandhi received more attention than the voices of the parents of Dublin. There were arguments about figures, there was quibbling about who fired the first shot, there was an attempt to put the blame on those who went on strike. Is it a fair principle, that whoever goes on strike at any time is wholly and entirely responsible? Are not there conditions now and again so appalling, so unjust, that men who have looked to themselves, to their profession, to their trade, to their family and have any respect for those things must go on strike? The responsibility is on those that bring about and want to make permanent the conditions that drive them on strike. The contribution of the Minister for Education to this debate on education, when our Army is rejecting 20 per cent. of young, able-bodied recruits because of illiteracy—the percentage swings between 10 and 20—after 20 years of compulsory school attendance, is that he always received the teachers with courtesy.

Courtesy never fills stomachs, but when I heard him panting like a raving fury and protesting that he had always received the teachers with courtesy, what occurred to my mind was what we all saw in the papers last week— that the officers and staff in charge of the Nuremberg executions were particularly courteous to the doomed men. Courtesy to the doomed teachers, courtesy to the uneducated children, courtesy to the parents whose children may be going completely wild. What does it mean to any of us as parents if even one child of ours loses a year's education, through illness or something of that kind—in just one year that could be made up easily at the other end, where we could afford it and could keep them on to 16, 18 or 19?

What consideration do we see given by the Taoiseach or by the Minister to the parents of those 40,000 children who have lost one year's education out of a maximum of about eight? Nothing but this: "Let the teachers go back to work; then we will discuss a number of things with them, but we will not discuss finance." That came from the lips of a man who entered Geneva to preach to the whole world that strikes and disputes should not be settled by the strong conquering the weak, by the strong dictating terms to the weak. The man who laid down that principle is the Head of a Government who, only a couple of months ago, laid down as a State principle that, in all disputes, arbitration and conciliation should be tried, rather than the strong beating the weak. Yet, when we come here to home affairs and he is called upon to settle a dispute in which he himself has a one-sided interest, all the claptrap uttered from high places in Geneva is discarded as so much tosh. It is just a case of Jekyll talking over there and Hyde here—there must be a different law, a different rule and a different principle when it comes to a dispute of our own.

Let the teachers walk back and then we will talk to them; but, even then, we will not talk to them about finance, about the conditions in their homes. Let them go back humiliated. Are you all proud of that, 25 years after we got control of our own State? What would schoolmaster Pearse think of the lot of you over there, with your old flags ready to cheer for victory—over whom? Victory over what? Victory over simple Irish teachers who merely asked—not demanded, but asked—for an opportunity to discuss with an Irish Government the conditions within their schools and the conditions applying to themselves. I say: "Shame on the whole lot of you, shame on you for your contempt for the high principles that stimulated all of us to make an effort to obtain an Irish Parliament with an Irish Government on top; shame on you who forgot that one of the most valuable things an Irish Government can control is the education of Irish youth; shame on you for your dull, determined and callous indifference to the conditions that exist outside." If you will not listen to the voice of parents, if you will not listen to the voice of Deputies, if you will not listen to the appeals of the Church, surely you can listen to the voices of the children? Discipline going completely, education that was bad now in danger of being lost absolutely—and all for what? Because the Taoiseach says: "We cannot pass over responsibility for the public purse" and, having raised that up as a principle, he quibbles about a motion which asks that people who best understand all the figures he has been presenting from one side would sit down in private, discuss the merits of the case and make recommendations to the Government.

If the case is all so simple, if the figures are as simple as the Taoiseach would have us believe, are we to take it that the delegates of the school managers and the School Attendance Committee on such an arbitration court are such thoroughly corrupt rogues that they would vote against the Government, in spite of the justice of their claim, so as to bolster up a bogus claim put up by the teachers? If the figures and the facts are so simple, why be afraid to put them before the clerical managers of this country, in private?

Does the Taoiseach not know he will be dealing with honourable men, with upright and fairminded men, men who will appreciate the taxpayers' position as well as the call for the education of youth? Is this not an attempt to pretend that there is a fair case to stand over, when he shirks submitting it to a tribunal—not one with authority to decide, not one with authority to scatter money, but an arbitration tribunal with authority merely to make recommendations to the Government as a result of the case put up by all the people in this dispute?

Remember, it is not only the Government and the teachers that are concerned. The two most important corners of the square are not the Government and the teachers, but the other two corners, the parents and the children. Those are the two corners which have not once been taken into account and have been referred to but rarely by the Government Minister, either in this or any previous debate.

Question put.

The Dáil divided:—Tá, 46; Níl, 72.

Tá

Anthony, Richard S.
Bennett, George C.
Browne, Patrick.
Byrne, Alfred.
Coburn, James.
Cogan, Patrick.
Coogan, Eamonn.
Corish, Brendan.
Cosgrave, Liam.
Costello, John A.
Davin, William.
Keyes, Michael.
Larkin, James (Junior).
MacEoin, Seán.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGilligan, Patrick.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Mongan, Joseph W.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Murphy, Timothy J.
Norton, William.
O'Donnell, William F.
Dillon, James M.
Dockrell, Henry M.
Dockrell, Maurice E.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Everett, James.
Finucane, Patrick.
Flanagan, Oliver J.
Giles, Patrick.
Halliden, Patrick J.
Heskin, Denis.
Hughes, James
O'Higgins, Thomas F.
O'Leary, John.
O'Neill, Eamonn.
O'Reilly, Patrick.
O'Reilly, Thomas.
O'Sullivan, Martin.
Pattison, James P.
Redmond, Bridget M.
Reidy, James.
Reynolds, Mary.
Roddy, Martin.
Sheldon, William A. W.

Níl

Aiken, Frank.
Allen, Denis.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Blaney, Neal.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Dan.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Brennan, Martin.
Brennan, Thomas.
Breslin, Cormac.
Briscoe, Robert.
Buckley, Seán.
Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
Butler, Bernard.
Childers, Erskine H.
Colbert, Michael.
Colley, Harry.
Corry, Martin J.
Crowley, Honor Mary.
Daly, Francis J.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
De Valera, Vivion
Flynn, Stephen.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Fogarty, Patrick J.
Friel, John.
Furlong, Walter.
Gorry, Patrick J.
Harris, Thomas.
Healy, John B.
Hilliard, Michael.
Humphries, Francis.
Kennedy, Michael J.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, James.
Kissane, Eamon.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick J.
Loughman, Frank.
Lydon, Michael F.
Lynch, James B.
McCann, John.
McCarthy, Seán.
MacEntee, Seán.
Moran, Michael.
Morrissey, Michael.
Moylan, Seán.
O Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Connor, John S.
O'Grady, Seán.
O'Loghlen, Peter J.
O'Rourke, Daniel.
O'Sullivan, Ted.
Rice, Bridget M.
Ruttledge, Patrick J.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Mary B.
Ryan, Robert.
Shanahan, Patrick.
Sheridan, Michael.
Skinner, Leo B.
Smith, Patrick.
Traynor, Oscar.
Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
Walsh, Laurence.
Walsh, Richard.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Ó Cinnéide.

Motion declared lost.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 6th November, 1946.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 23 Oct 1946

Private Deputies' Business. - Reopening of National Schools in Dublin—Motion.

Mr. Morrissey

Mr. Morrissey

Mr. O'Sullivan

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Oct 1946