I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £3,683,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1952, for Increases in Remuneration of Civil Servants, Members of the Garda Síochána and of the Defence Forces, and of Teachers.
The amount of this Estimate which is ascribable to increases in remuneration to the Civil Service is £1,875,000. This represents the cost during the present financial year of implementing, on the one hand, the awards made by the Civil Service Arbitration Board which was set up last year and, on the other hand, certain settlements made by our predecessors through conciliation. These awards and settlements were made during the trial year of the scheme, which ended on 31st March, 1951.
By far the greater portion of the sum required for the Civil Service remuneration is due to the award made by the Civil Service Arbitration Board in May, 1951, on the claim for a general increase in Civil Service pay arising out of the increase in the cost of living. As I indicated in the House last June, the cost of this award, together with the concurrent settlement of the claims of the higher Civil Servants, is estimated at £1,395,000 annually. In view of the fact that retrospective payment is being made to 15th January, a further sum of £290,000 is necessary to meet the charge which must be met during this current year.
The amount of the Supplementary Estimate, which represents awards and settlements under the Civil Service conciliation and arbitration machinery, apart from the general revision of Civil Service pay, is £190,000.
The other Civil Service arbitration awards—there were only two—were the award on a claim for steeper increments for Post Office manipulative classes and the award on a salary claim made on behalf of forestry inspectors in the Land Commission. The first-mentioned of these awards amounts approximately to £25,000 a year.
Among the principal conciliation settlements I should mention the large-scale reorganisation of the Post Office engineering classes, estimated to cost £48,000 in the year, and the settlement of a salary claim by officers of the Customs and Excise Branch, estimated to cost £34,840—approximately, of course—together with a settlement of a salary claim from the preventive grades in the revenue service, which will cost £21,600, also approximately.
Arising out of the Report of the Civil Service Arbitration Board, it was decided that a revision of pay and allowances of the Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces should be settled on the basis of the arbitration findings in the case of the Civil Service. I stated last June that the upward revision of pay and allowances of these groups would have to be provided for and, accordingly, in the Supplementary Estimate provision is made for an increased amount of £399,000 to cover the increases granted, with effect as from 15th January, 1951, in the pay and allowances of the members of the Garda Síochána.
The Supplementary Estimate also includes provision to the extent of £339,000 to cover the increases granted, similarly with effect as from 15th January, to officers, N.C.O.s, and men of the Defence Forces, including the First Line Reserve, the F.C.A. and Sluagh Mara. With certain minor exceptions, designed to remove anomalies, the increases granted to the officers of the Defence Forces were calculated on the same basis as the increases granted to civil servants.
The provision for increased remuneration to teachers includes the cost in the present financial year of increases in the salaries and allowances of national teachers payable under the terms of an agreement recorded in July last by the National Teachers' Conciliation Council, which had considered and examined the claim for increased remuneration made by national teachers. Provision is also made in the Estimate for the additional contribution payable towards the cost of the increases in remuneration of vocational teachers which were granted on the same terms as the increases allowed to civil servants, and these likewise became effective as from the 15th January last.
Provision is also made for increased remuneration to meet the claim which was made by the secondary teachers. This claim has now been satisfactorily dealt with.
I should like to say that the total cost to the State of the increases in remuneration granted to national and vocational teachers will not, for various reasons, mature in the current financial year. In the next few years the cost to the State of the increases granted to these teachers will be of the order of £1,000,000 a year.
