Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Nov 1955

Vol. 153 No. 5

Committee on Finance. - Vote 40—Primary Education.

Tairgim:—

Go ndeonfar suim fhorlíontach nach mó ná £90,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfas chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1956, chun Bun-Oideachais, lena n-áirítear Aoisliúntas Muinteoirí Scoile Náisiúnta agus Deontas-i-gCabhair, etc.

The acceptance by the Government of the findings of the recent National Teachers' Arbitration Board necessitates the provision of extra money this year. The Ministers for Finance and Education on the one side and the I.N.T.O. on the other, are parties to a scheme for conciliation and arbitration for national teachers.

The teachers' claim submitted to the arbitration board was that the scale salaries of trained national teachers be adjusted to put them on a par with those paid to vocational and secondary teachers. The board found by a majority that the scale of salaries payable to trained national teachers should not be adjusted so as to put them on a par with those paid to vocational and secondary teachers and, a majority of the board being unable to agree on a scale of salaries for trained national teachers, the finding of the chairman was that the differential, which existed between national teachers and secondary teachers in 1946, when the main basis for the scales now in operation for the three groups of teachers was first laid down, should be restored as far as possible; the chairman accordingly recommended scales designed to achieve that objective.

A second claim by the teachers' side was that a percentage increase be granted to all untrained teachers, equivalent to the overall percentage increase to trained teachers, following the granting to trained teachers of parity in salary with secondary and vocational teachers as set out in the first claim. The finding was that since a majority of the board was unable to agree upon a finding on this second claim, the chairman recommended salary scales for untrained teachers adjusted in relation to the scales recommended by him for trained teachers in the first claim.

The Government presented the report of the board to Dáil Eireann, and announced that they proposed to give immediate effect to the findings of the board in full, and that it was also proposed to make a proportionate increase in grants to national schools paid on a capitation basis. The estimated cost of these increases in the remuneration of national teachers, and in grants to capitation schools for the first full year of operation is £275,000, rising eventually to £315,000, per annum. The findings take effect from the 1st October last, and the amount required to implement the findings for the current financial year ending 31st March, 1956, is £120,000. It is expected, however, that there will be a saving of £30,000 on the sub-head and the net amount to be provided is therefore £90,000.

I consider it desirable that I should make reference to some matters which by way of Press comment and by way of I.N.T.O. campaign have come before the public since the award. Notwithstanding the fact that the nature of the claim and the basis of the award are quite clear as I have quoted them to you from the report of the arbitration board, there has been much misrepresentation and misunderstanding regarding them. As this has been substantially contributed to by statements issuing from representative bodies of the I.N.T.O. I think it necessary further to clear the matter by quoting from, not inappropriately, the November issue of the Irish School Monthly (page 223) which is published under the editorial control of the I.N.T.O.:—

"Arguments based on economic factors, such as the cost of living, the national income, etc., were not discussed. The I.N.T.O. sought the establishment of a principle, and in presenting the case it was made clear in our written statement and orally by our representatives that the granting of parity or otherwise would in no way prejudge our claims to further increases in salary should we choose to make them on economic or other grounds. The award, therefore, was not an increase in salary, as such, and must not be so interpreted. What the judge, in effect, said was: ‘I do not think that national teachers should be paid the same salaries as vocational and secondary teachers. I think, however, that the difference between their salaries is too big, and I recommend that the gap be reduced'."

This quotation is from a special contribution dealing with the arbitration award, and signed by the general secretary of the organisation.

The position can further be made clear by another quotation from the same article—page 224:—

"New salary claim: A salary claim based in the main on economic factors has been submitted to the Minister for Education. The economic factors cited are the cost of living and the national income."

The new claim, here referred to, was submitted to the Minister for Education on the 28th October, 1955, and the normal steps are in process of being taken for consideration of the claim under the conciliation and arbitration scheme, which is a continuing scheme. All this will, I hope, clear up, at least for the Deputies, what the claim made by the organisation was for, and what is the basis of the arbitrator's award.

A second matter I have to mention is a serious one not only as a particular instance but in principle. The scheme of arbitration provides that when an application is made the persons making the claim will submit with their claim a statement of the grounds upon which it is based. Within a stated time the official side representing the Minister for Education and the Minister for Finance will supply the claimants with an outline of the grounds upon which they rely to make any rebutting case. If the claim has to be brought to the arbitration stage then the claimants make their case before an agreed chairman; it is replied to on the official side, and the claimants are given the opportunity of then counter-replying. This stage of the arbitration proceedings may take place in public, and the arguments on both sides are put forward by selected advocates who for the official side must be serving civil servants and for the teachers' side must be officers of the I.N.T.O. or serving teachers.

When the claimants have thus replied in public the proceedings of the board are continued in private. The discussion of the various aspects of claim and counter-case involved can be continued at length by members of the board itself. The board consists of two officers of the Departments of Education and Finance, two officers of the I.N.T.O. or serving teachers, and an independent chairman agreed on beforehand by both sides.

In the present instance, the public hearing the took place on three days, the 19th, 20th and 21st September, 1955; the board's discussions took place on the 22nd, 23rd and 27th September, 1955; ample time was, therefore, given for argument and consideration before the proceedings were terminated. Immediately following the termination of the arbitration proceedings a serious campaign was initiated by the claimants' organisation against one of the officers of the Department of Education, namely, the chief inspector, who had acted as one of the three advocates on the official side. The grounds were that he had made statements before the board in his capacity as advocate, which were regarded as objectionable by the claimants. Serious charges have been publicly made against this officer, and by way of various resolutions, branches of the organisation have called for strong official action in his regard. This matter culminated in a letter to me from the Central Executive Committee of the organisation, dated 29th October last.

I had deliberately refrained from any action in relation to these happenings lest I add to the difficulties of the situation. When, however, on the 4th instant, I received a further letter stating that it was intended to publish the letter to me of the 29th October, I decided I could no longer refrain from taking cognisance of these happenings. I, therefore, sent a letter to the organisation that afternoon expressing my concern at the developments which had taken place. I have no wish to publish my letter. I have no wish to create a precedent which would suggest that when the arguments at an arbitration board have been finished they may be brought from the arbitration room to be argued to decimal points at either departmental or ministerial level. Such a proceeding would completely destroy much of the usefulness of the contribution which conciliation and arbitration machinery can bring to our conduct or public business.

A version of the letter written by the executive of the I.N.T.O. to me on the 29th October is now published in the November issue of the Irish School Monthly. It does not contain all the charges against the officer which were made in the actual letter addressed to me. The letter as published in the journal is an expurgated version. It would also appear that it must have been this expurgated version which was sent to the public Press and was referred to in uses of Sunday, the 6th, and Monday, 7th instant.

Apart from my fundamental objection to publishing my reply to the I.N.T.O., doing so would inevitably bring to view that part of the letter which it was apparently considered desirable to expurgate, although no part of the letter addressed to me has been withdrawn. I am encouraged to hope that the reflection and the prudence which caused the expurgation of the letter for purposes of publication may further exert themselves on these responsible and may lead to a position in which it will be realised and accepted that conciliation and arbitration is a scheme that must be worked according to certain rules and conventions. The scheme is intended to provide, and does provide, an ordered machinery for the presentation of claims and counter-case, the orderly arguing of the case involved, and the presentation of a decision in the form which enables the Dáil to be assured that the decision has been arrived at in an orderly way after adequate examination. With the Minister for Finance, I share responsibility for approving of the general lines of official statements rebutting anv claim. No officer is commissioned to act as an advocate who has not my confidence and who is not fully competent to discharge the duty assigned to him.

I should like to assure the Dáil that I have the fullest confidence in the chief inspector and his work. Anyone who has ever had any contact with him will understand this. That includes many members of this House. He is a conscientious, painstaking, competent official, as courteous in his manner as he is alert in his attention. I consider it my duty to the general interests served by my Department to protect him from such misrepresentations, charges and attacks as he is being subjected to. The courts of justice could not serve their purpose effectively if either at the hands of advocates or of clients the arguments concluded in the courts poured over into the streets in recrimination or personal vendetta. In the present matter, even our sense of fair play is outraged.

The scheme of conciliation and arbitration was established to serve the interests of all concerned—the Dáil, the Department, the teachers and the public. Apart from its objective of arriving in the most orderly way at decisions with regard to salaries and emoluments, it has the very important advantage that, by creating an ordered machinery for that purpose, it releases time and energy on the part of both teachers and the Department for the general education work that is their raison d'être. In spite of the difficulties which appear at the moment, I shall persistently work to make the conciliation and arbitration machinery what it was set up to be, and I feel sure that I will have the sympathetic help of all sections of the Dáil to this end.

Sílim go mbeimid uilig ar aon tuairim gur ceart don Dáil na deacrachtaí atá sa scéim a thuiscint agus macnamh a dhéanamh ar na dualgaisí atá ar an Rialtas, go mór mhór ar an Aire Oideachais agus an Aire Airgeadais, nuair atá ceisteanna a bhaineas le tuarastal na múinteóirí nó tuarastal seirbhíseach poiblí eile á phle faoin scéim seo. Sa tslí chéanna, caithfidh Cumann na Múinteóirí nó aon chumann a bhaineas leis an Stát-Sheirbhís a chuid cásanna do phlé agus daoine do chur ansin le gach pointe do chur os comhair an bhoird agus an bhreithim. Tá sé leagtha síos sa scéim, go bhfeadhfaidh an Aireacht daoine do chur ann thar ceann na Roinne, an Roinn Oideachais no an Roinn Airgeadais, chun a dtaobh siúd agus taobh an Rialtais den cheist a phlé.

Members of the House will appreciate that, when these questions are being argued, either through the conciliation council or through the arbitration court, in the same way as the representatives of the teachers or of the Civil Service organisations have the right to go there and make their case. It is inevitable and understandable that the Minister for Education, with the Minister for Finance—sometimes only the Minister for Finance is concerned, for example, with the general claims of the Civil Service—should have the right to send official representatives to make the case from the official Government point of view.

I do not propose to go into the question of the controversy that has arisen. In the first place, I am in the position that I do not know what the chief inspector is alleged to have said and which I gather has been expurgated from the letter appearing in the school monthly to which the Minister has referred; but even if I did know, I do not think it would be proper to intervene in the matter. I hope it will be possible to close the incident and that it will be seen that both sides have the right to make a case, that they are sent there merely as representatives, and presumably it is in their representative capacity and as speaking for the Minister that the chief inspector or any other official representative in these proceedings gives voice to opinions. I cannot proceed any further in that matter.

With regard to the arbitration in general, I should like to ask the Minister if he could say what proportion of the £117,000 is by way of increase to Class 2, that is, the untrained teachers who were trained before 1921 and immediately after. I think they are only a relatively small number, and if the position is being taken with regard to the award that it is an effort to bridge the gap so far as remuneration is concerned between the salaries of national teachers and the salaries of vocational or secondary teachers, I have the feeling that the increases given to that particular class of teacher—I think they are a relatively small minority of the total body—are smaller than might have been expected, having regard to the nature of the award in general.

I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture stated at a teachers' meeting at Tullamore that the teachers were unable to have their claims satisfied or met in full by the Government as there were no funds available. If that is the reason, it is understandable and will be accepted by a great many.

On the other hand, the claim that had been made by the teachers was that they should secure parity of treatment with the other two branches of the profession that I have mentioned. It is always difficult to lay down a principle of parity, even in such a branch of our lives as education, between those engaged in the administration and the teaching.

The history of the primary teachers' salaries goes back to 1920, when they were granted what they considered at the time to be very good terms by the British Government. Unfortunately, a cut was made in that award some years afterwards, and I think that the teachers had a grievance, and no doubt that grievance has tended to become accentuated as time went on. I think that the viewpoint of the Minister in regard to the necessity of approaching these proceedings, which are in process of consideration by the conciliation council, in a reasonable spirit is a correct one. They should be examined in a reasonable spirit and conclusions formed in a reasonable way. Such an attitude will meet with general favour.

The opportunity presented by this Estimate enables us to have a look at the work that is being done in education and administration and in the schools and to ask ourselves, within the limited sphere of the present discussion, whether improvements can be made. The opportunities which the House has of discussing educational matters do not often arise. We have the annual Estimate and occasionally a Supplementary Estimate of this nature. I should like to say that, at a time when educational problems are looming more largely in the affairs of other countries, not alone in regard to moral and philosophical problems, but in regard to training in agriculture and in professional, scientific and industrial pursuits, Deputies, as representing the people, might like to give their views. What must strike us at once in considering this matter is the great attention being given to educational matters in other countries. Our neighbours in Great Britain are spending huge sums on education although they may be looking on education perhaps more from the material point of view. I feel that they have made up their minds that heavy expenditure upon education is an unavoidable necessity and that in fact they have decided that they cannot afford not to expend huge sums even to the limit of their resources, upon the training of their citizens so that they will be able to maintain their position in the world and the standard of living of the people as a result of the character, training and skill thus imparted to their people.

We, of course, cannot afford either not to spend on education. In our circumstances we are, perhaps, still more interested and have a right to be particularly interested in this question of preparing our young people for the future. We know that a great many of our people make big sacrifices to secure that their children will face the world under the most favourable conditions. We know that they consider no sacrifice too great to give them the benefit of really first-class education, but I wonder if the man in the street has the same feeling. I do not think that, in the nature of things, he will have that same feeling as the individual parent will have with regard to his children.

If we read what goes on in other countries we must be greatly struck with the place that education and the solving of educational problems takes and the attention that is given to these matters in countries that are, perhaps, somewhat comparable with our own.

I think the Deputy is enlarging the scope of the debate very considerably. This is a Supplementary Estimate and only those matters which are contained in the White Paper fall relevantly for discussion.

I want to stress the importance of seeing that everything possible is done to enable the country to benefit from the capabilities of our people. Unless we develop their potentialities and make the best use of the opportunities we have the country is likely to suffer as well as the individual.

I may be in order in referring to the fact that when the primary teachers claim that their work is as important as that of the other branches of the service or perhaps other sections of the community, it would be very difficult to refute that claim. In the case of the primary teachers, I think they could claim, and have claimed, that they lay the foundation upon which the other branches of the profession have to build. We must also feel that teachers occupy a very special position when we consider that we are entrusting them with part of our responsibilities as parents and that during the most impressionable and formative period of the lives of the children they come greatly under the influence of the teachers. In considering their status in the community we must bear in mind, not merely the number of hours they spend in the day or week, or the period in the year, that they spend in imparting instruction to pupils, but we must think also of the great personal imponderable influence which the teachers exercise on the lives of the children and which, in the case of the good teacher, will make all the difference. It is a thing one notices immediately one crosses the threshold of a school where the teacher is imbued with the proper ideals and is endeavouring to give the pupils the ideals that animate himself and endeavouring to imprint on their minds a sense of values and a sense of purpose which they will carry with them in life.

If we have regard to these matters and the work of the teacher from that point of view, most of us will agree that the teacher who carries out his work to the best of his ability, and who endeavours to inspire his pupils and to foster in them the regard for our national traditions and our national culture, is worthy of something that is, perhaps, of more value than the remuneration that he will receive, something which we could not place a value upon, that is the respect of his neighbours, and the esteem and the understanding of the people among whom he works.

I have the feeling that some of the difficulties that have arisen with regard to this question of teachers' remuneration arose from the fact that the teachers felt that the prestige and the dignity of their profession was not in keeping with its real position in national life, with their own educational standards and the work they were doing. I am quite sure that the people among whom they work have nothing but thankfulness and gratitude to those who have educated them or educated their children, and upon whom, as I have said, the responsibility of the parents in some measure has been placed of preparing the children worthily and suitably to lead their lives as citizens and as good Irishmen and good Irishwomen.

We depend on the teachers, in particular, and upon their efforts and enthusiasm in the great work of the revival of Irish. For generations, they have been associated with that work. The advances that have been made and the goals that have been achieved are due, in great measure, if not entirely, to the work of the teachers: by that I mean, in very great degree, primary teachers. We should like the meritorious work which teachers do—either in their ordinary capacity of teachers teaching the curriculum or, perhaps, more particularly, their work for Irish —to receive special recognition. There should be incentive and reward for the teacher who does specially meritorious work in connection with the advancement of Irish in his school, particularly the advancement of oral Irish. The struggle to preserve our national identity and to strengthen our own traditional cultural values is a very serious and important one.

In dealing with this question of remuneration, we have to bear in mind the necessity which undoubtedly exists of making the remuneration such that the very best types of young Irishmen and Irishwomen will be attracted to the ranks of the teaching profession. How are we to secure this? I think the State should do everything it possibly can to enhance the prestige and dignity of the teaching profession. In the world as it is at the present time, and having regard to the economic and social changes that are taking place every day, and taking place with great rapidity, the teacher's position is entirely different from what it was in our schooldays. Potential entrants to the teaching profession will inevitably compare the rewards in that profession with those in others—with the opportunities for higher remuneration and for advancement not alone in the Civil Service but in the skilled trades, in the commercial life of the country and even in ordinary clerical employment. Too often, I fear they will, having regard to the prospects in other walks of life and in other avocations, perhaps conclude that the teaching profession is only a second best or perhaps even a third best.

One of the points we have to bear in mind—I think it is a very important one—in connection with this question of parity is that while the teachers have a very special position and while it is indeed difficult to institute exact comparisons between their work and their place in the country and their importance in the lives of our people with those of other avocations—this was often brought to my notice when I was Minister for Education—if you had two boys in the training college, one of whom went ahead for teaching and the other for the Civil Service, there is scarcely any doubt but that the opportunities for bettering himself, for advancement and promotion, were much more likely in the case of the boy who elected to enter the Civil Service than in the case of the boy who remained teaching in the national school.

As time goes on, in spite of the fact that there seems to have been an assimilation under the increases granted to the junior executive grade, I think it will be recognised that the opportunities for those in that grade for promotion and advancement are much greater than for the national teacher. Even if the teacher equips himself with a universtity degree or other such qualification, the number of places open to him as principal of a fairly large urban school, for example, is very limited. In that respect, I think it cannot be said that the teachers are doing as well as their confreres who, they claim, have more or less the same educational qualifications and the same background as they have.

I feel that, in presenting this Supplementary Estimate, the Minister has taken the right view of this arbitration award. While we are endeavouring to get conciliation and arbitration machinery to work as between the Department of Education and the teachers' organisation, we should be very wary in this House of transgressing in any way upon what success might ultimately be developed from this machinery. I feel it was a pity in the circumstances that incidents arose which necessitated the reference the Minister had to make today in the necessary protection of a very responsible officer of his Department. I do not think that in this particular discussion we should get involved in the merits or demerits of this particular effort. The improvement and the effective working of this machinery is something that must, in the ultimate analysis, be built up on the goodwill of both parties if it is to work at all. I do not feel that we in this House should come into a discussion of the question from the point of view of pro or con until it has been proved ineffective or abortive and then it will be the responsibility of the elected representatives of this country to face up to whatever is in their estimate and judgment due to the teachers.

I do not want to follow Deputy Derrig into a discussion on the teachers' place in the community. We have always in this House in a unanimous spirit accepted the national importance and the real worth of the teachers throughout the length and breadth of the State. Generally speaking, in most areas that I know of, particularly in the rural community, there is no question but that the teacher certainly has a merited position of substantial standing among his neighbours.

My feeling on this Supplementary Estimate is that, until such time as the effort of conciliation and arbitration machinery has failed, Governments should take the line which the present Government is taking through its spokesman on this matter, the Minister for Education, that having set up the machinery, and an award having been made, they would implement it. I would appeal for a growth of goodwill between the parties to this conciliation and arbitration procedure rather than that we should ever find ourselves again in this country reduced to the abominable position that arose when we had the unseemly spectacle of a strike among the teachers of this nation.

This is difficult and dangerous ground. There was a long struggle with the various organisations to get to the stage where conciliation and arbitration machinery was designed. I feel that in all the circumstances we should be very slow in this House by any improvident statement to impinge in any way upon what might be the ultimate success of this system. We know that many grievances, real and imaginary, exist among the teaching community. We fully appreciate that a good deal of the confidence which the teachers throughout the country had in Governments was dissipated in what I described as a shocking national catastrophe.

I want the teachers to realise and I want, through this House, to say that we members of the House want them to realise, that we would rather be able to assist them in resolving their own problems amicably and reasonably, than to help them in any other direction. The ultimate satisfaction of what claims they are justly entitled to will take time and much money possibly to implement. I would rather see a big, powerful and worth-while organisation using the machinery now at their disposal to push on in an ordered and reasonable way their demands, than that we would be subjected to, as we are, the various bulletins of grievances, complaints and everything else.

It is time that the I.N.T.O. realised that they have, within the four walls of this House, people with a tremendous amount of sympathy and goodwill towards them. I, personally, adopt the attitude that I would sooner see the teaching profession resolve their own difficulties amicably, than have them ever again thrown into the maelstrom of day to day politics. In that respect, I think the presentation of the Supplementary Estimate to the House by the Minister, the acceptance of the award by the Government and the quotations he read from the organ of the teachers' organisation show that this is but a beginning.

This is not the resolution of all their claims. This, to me, and I hope to the teachers, recognises an advance, one to which they can have recourse and preserve their dignity and their self-respect. Whatever the merits of the award itself may be vis-a-vis the teachers, the Department of Education and the Department of Finance, I am glad to see in any case, that the Government's attitude, in so far as their goodwill is concerned, is that these awards will be honoured.

I am perfectly conscious of the fact that the teachers' rôle in the State is a highly honourable and important one, as inevitably must be the rôle of anybody who is charged very heavily with the moulding and developing of a young mind and a young character. I have always accepted the view—and I still accept the view—that that entitled them to very reasonable and fair consideration in relation to remuneration from the State but in the complexity of the problem I would rather see more restraint and more honest endeavour towards evolving a plan for ultimate solution than being slightly hasty and at a certain stage making inopportune remarks that tend to cripple a system which at least has the good wishes of us all.

I know that you may call me to order, a Cheann Comhairle, in the final stage of my remarks, but there is one section of the teaching community who have given their service to this State that I feel I must mention before concluding. In the spirit of the recognition that the Government has given to the work of the teacher in accepting this award, be it intrinsically good or bad, I move on to ask the Minister —while he has to encourage, and I hope will continue with his clarity of vision to encourage, the development and use of the conciliation machinery —not to forget those very strained, distressed and, in some cases, needy members of the retired pensioned teachers' organisation.

Very ingenious.

In conclusion, whether it be in the ordinary pursuits of the curriculum, or in their efforts to continue a spoken language in the Gaeltacht area, or make it more readily spoken in an English speaking district, we all recognise the full value of the national schoolteachers to this State. We all recognise the dignity and esteem that his particular vocation merits. I am quite sure that in preserving his dignity himself the teacher will, in the ultimate analysis, find his position within the structure of the State, and be adequately remunerated for his worth-while contribution to the State's development. But I say very seriously, above all things, in relation to this vexed problem of teachers' remuneration, let nobody in this House, by any exuberance, in any way impinge upon the likely success of conciliation and arbitration machinery. I feel that unless we can get that machinery to work properly, we might again be leading into a degrading position that you would have a service so valuable to the State at loggerheads again with its employer.

From the Minister's statement it is clear that there are two problems here in relation to remuneration. The first is based on the teachers' claim for parity of remuneration with secondary and vocational teachers. The other one is the more recent claim which has been received by the Minister for an increase in salary due to the increase in the cost of living, which has taken place since the teachers' salaries were last adjusted.

Before us, in this Estimate, is the question of an increase in salary based on the teachers' claim for parity with the two other branches of the teaching profession. Personally, I would compare it, not alone with the other two branches, but with the other professions. I would take the qualifications, the length of time it takes a teacher to receive these qualifications, the amount of study and expense which goes into getting them, and I would compare these facts with those that obtain in other professions. I would also compare the rates of remuneration. It can be shown that the teacher comes very badly out of these comparisons, not alone with members of the two other teaching groups, but with members of the other professions where the qualifications and other considerations are about the same. The national teacher's salary is very much lower.

This application by the teachers has two aspects. There is the financial aspect, maintaining and proving as they do that the work of their profession is as important as the work done by the other two groups, that the standard of education is as high, that the period of training is as long, that the working conditions are as exacting and perhaps more so. That is one aspect of their demand—they demand parity of pay. Again, there is a bigger consideration which the I.N.T.O. have in mind, that is, the question of status, their status as compared with that of teachers in the other two grades. It is very important for any profession to uphold the status of that profession.

The Minister has defended the chief inspector—and rightly so; I know the chief inspector personally, he is a gentleman in every respect—but if any person makes a public statement which can be regarded as not in accordance with the facts, then it is reasonable that that statement should be challenged.

I think it is in the interests of the teaching profession that a disparaging statement, or what they regard as a disparaging statement, made by anyone, whether he be the Minister for Education or the chief inspector or any official of the Department, should be nailed. The chief inspector's remarks to my mind can be challenged and his assumptions and conclusions from certain figures which he has given are wrong. I think that is the attitude of the I.N.T.O. He goes on to show that the percentage of failures in the entrance examination to the teaching profession—2 per cent. in one year, 1 per cent. in another—means that the standard of examination is very low. That is a false conclusion because we in the teaching profession know the facts.

The entry into the training college is by two methods—through preparatory colleges and through open competition. In the open competition examination, I think it is necessary for a pupil to have six or seven honours. They are the best pupils or the pupils with the highest marks in the Leaving Certificate. Then they go through a two years' course in the training college and eventually qualify as teachers and the high percentage of qualifications is because of the high standard which the pupils have attained before entry to the college. The cream of Leaving Certificate students, honours students at that, is picked every year and those students find their way into the training colleges and it is for that reason that the percentage of failures is so small and not because the standard of examination is low as was alleged by the chief inspector.

As I have said, there are two reasons for demanding parity: number one is the question of increase in salary, and number two is the question of the status of the primary schoolteacher. I quarrel myself with the arbitration award, because it is very small in comparison with the demands and the reasoned case made by the teachers for a much higher increase. If we compare the qualifications and the work done by these teachers, with the vocational and secondary teachers, we find that the work and the conditions in primary schools are much more exacting. The standard of education required is much higher than that required for entry into the vocational teaching profession, and is equally as high as that which is attained by secondary teachers. A secondary teacher becomes one on the strength of the university degree. To attain that, whether it be the B.A. or B.Comm., it is not necessary for him or her to have Leaving Certificate Honours. It is absolutely necessary for entrants to the training course for primary teachers to have honours in the Leaving Certificate. One can become a graduate or a student for the B.A. or the B.Comm. degrees on the matriculation examination, which, to my mind, is about equal to a pass in the Leaving Certificate. Then the university student spends three years to attain his degree.

Of course, a candidate for the primary teaching profession spends only two years in a training college, but one must remember that the number of hours devoted to study and to the practice of teaching during those two years is much greater than that devoted to study for the B.A. or the B.Comm. degrees. Then again, if compared with a teacher in a vocational school, I think the primary teacher comes out best also, except in respect of parity. It is only necessary for an Irish vocational teacher to spend one year in training and it is not even necessary for that person to be an Honours Leaving Certificate student. There is an examination for entry to a course of training for a vocational teacher of Irish and continuation subjects. The standard is not high. After passing that examination, he does a year's course of training, after which he commences to teach in a vocational school, and commences at a salary very much higher than that of the primary teacher.

This award does not do anything to remedy that disparity. In some cases there is no increase at all. For instance single men and women in the first year of their teaching career do not get any increase and the amount of the increase for single men and women in the second year is £2 2s. a year. That is so small that I am not at all surprised at the attitude of the I.N.T.O. There are cases where even married men with a number of years' service get only something like £7 a year increase under the award.

It was stated in the report which the Minister has read that it was felt there was too much of a gap between the two classes of teachers or, at least between the primary teachers and the other two classes and that it was intended not to close the gap but to make it less wide. This certainly does not take many inches off it. The highest increase to a married teacher at the top of the scale is somewhere in the region of about £30—I am quite sure about that——

Yes, that is for a married man at the top, £31, women and single men, £26, and junior assistant teachers £12.

Even that, which was the highest award at that point in the scare was only some £30, or 10/- a week, while we see every day of the week increases for unskilled workers of 12/6, 15/- and so on.

It is unfortunate that the teachers should have to claim for parity; one would think it would be a natural development over the years. While it has not been so, I think it is because of the large number of primary teachers as compared with the number of secondary and vocational teachers and the large sum of money which is being paid by the Department compared with the sum being paid to the secondary and vocational teachers.

We had in the Twenty-Six Counties about 12,000 teachers and the amount of the cost of the salaries is about £8,000,000 for primary teachers, about £1,500,000 for secondary teaching and about £1,250,000 for vocational teachers. I think that is the reason the salaries of primary teachers have been depressed—because of the financial consideration. I think the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture in his discussion with the teachers in Tullamore recently gave the key to the whole thing when he said the trouble was that there were no funds to bring up the primary teachers' salaries on a par with the others.

Whether the arbitrator had that in mind or not I do not know; whether he consciously knew that if he gave a more reasonable award it would cost the Government £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 instead of £250,000, but it seems to me anyhow that it is because of the large number involved that over the years—not alone now but at other times—the standard of salaries has been kept not at the just figure but at the figure which it was thought could be afforded by the Department. It is important, I admit, that arbitration and conciliation machinery which the teachers had sought and which they were glad to receive should be kept going, tried and given a chance to succeed, but it is unfortunate also that our first taste of such machinery has been very bitter.

Your first taste of conciliation and arbitration machinery was that your first two claims were arranged at conciliation level without even going to arbitration.

It is arbitration, I mean. While I do not want to prejudice the case which will be made for an increase due to the increase in the cost of living, I hope that better treatment will be meted out to these people because it is important for the country that we should have a satisfied body of teachers, teachers who not alone perform the useful work of teaching and imparting knowledge to our children but who work very strenuously in rural areas especially in social work, on parochial and development committees, Gaelic organisations and the G.A.A. In any of these committees in most rural areas throughout Ireland you will find the teacher in a key position doing work for which he is not being paid and for which he expects no pay.

Therefore, it is only right that for the important work which he is paid to do he should be well paid and that he should be paid as well as the other teachers who are doing work no more important. When figures are arrived at by arbitration they can be rejected by either side. If the I.N.T.O. think that the figures are too low they can refuse to accept them. If the Department thinks that the figures are too high they can refuse to accept them and there is nothing strange at all in the attitude of the I.N.T.O. They are quite free to say that they are not satisfied. They are quite free to give their grounds for dissatisfaction and if public statements are made by persons on either side and it is felt by the other side that these statements are unfounded they are quite free to say that they do not believe that the statements are in accordance with the facts I think that the officials of the Department should not take offence at the fact that the I.N.T.O. are quarrelling with something with which they do not agree.

I want to emphasise very strongly that the teachers are not satisfied with the award. The award does not increase salaries in some cases. In other cases it increases them by £2; in the case of the highest paid official it increases salary by £30 per year. That is not a satisfactory position. The teachers are not satisfied with it and they are making their dissatisfaction clear in every way they can. They cannot be blamed for doing so.

I think Deputy Cunningham put his finger on the trouble when he pointed out that one of the real reasons why parity has not been seriously considered by the Department, as far as the teachers' claim is concerned, is because the number of primary teachers involved is much greater than the number of teachers engaged in vocational or secondary teaching. In other words, as far as the Department is concerned the cupboard is bare and the money is not there to meet this very just demand for parity. I believe that if a frank approach had been made and a frank statement, perhaps even a blunt statement, had been issued by the Department to the teachers we would not now be faced with the very serious situation which has arisen. We would not have this grave feeling of dissatisfaction amongst the teachers with the conciliation machinery and the implementation of the miserable award made under that machinery. Instead of the word "conciliation" I think a better word would be "infuriating" machinery; I think that would be much more in keeping with the results or this attempt to smooth out difficulties.

It is agreed by all thinking people that we should attract into the ranks of the teaching profession the very best of our young men and women. In so far as practical proof of that belief is concerned, we have only to look at the salaries paid to the teachers and their conditions, to realise that that expression, that pious hope, that we should attract the best into the teaching profession, is just so much lip service. There is no incentive to parents at the present time to advise their children to go on for this most important career.

Deputy Cunningham gave certain figures. My information is that the number of trained primary teachers is in the region of 10,000. If we work out their salaries, the average is £10 per week. It might not be so bad if that £10 per week was the salary paid to the lowest trained teacher. But we have the position that a trained lady teacher starting in this career, and taking responsibility for the moulding of young minds, receives the princely sum of approximately £5 per week on which to subsist and keep up a certain standard in her particular locality, the standard of the profession to which she has the honour to belong. A young man in his first year starts with roughly £5 per week. If he is unlucky enough, or foolish enough, to get married at that stage he will get the princely sum of approximately £6 10s. per week on which to keep himself and his wife.

Let us look at the position of other employees. There are young clerk-typists and shorthand typists working for local authorities and the salaries I have mentioned represent roughly the salaries they receive. I believe that £5 per week for a clerk-typist, a shorthand typist, or a lower grade civil servant is not at all a just wage. Surely no one will suggest for a moment that a trained teacher, charged with the responsibility of training the youth of the country, should be paid on the same basis or put in the same category as these other people to whom I have referred. I think that is most unfair to the teaching profession and the time will come when we will no longer get the cream of our young people in the secondary schools prepared to take up teaching as a profession.

There is nothing so dangerous as a dissatisfied or disgruntled body of teachers. I do not suggest we will reach that stage but I would like to point out that there is no end to the evil that could be done in the minds of rising generations if the primary teachers, as such, took it into their heads to cast aside the responsibilities with which they are charged and to say: "I am not being properly paid for my services. I will not take the interest in the work which I would normally take." If that stage is reached it will take more than money to remedy it; and money is at the root of this particular evil.

If the Department as such found that this demand for parity could not be met for financial reasons it would have been a better day's work to admit that straight away. Instead of that, we had the extraordinary performance of a very decent man, a highly-respected civil servant, sent in to the meeting, fully armed by the Department; and there he made statements with which no man of common sense could agree. The Minister has very skilfully suggested to-day that an attack has been launched on this individual, this chief inspector. I have heard nobody making an attack on the chief inspector himself. The chief inspector was carrying out the instructions and the directions issued to him by the Department; and the man responsible for the Department and for the directions issued by that Department is the Minister for Education. Nobody is responsible for the remarks made by the chief inspector except the head of the Department, namely, the Minister; and it is unfair for people either here or elsewhere to try, on the one hand, to blame the chief inspector——

——or, on the other hand, to suggest that the chief inspector was only doing his job, and it is unfair as far as the teachers are concerned to criticise him for the statements he made.

I want the Minister to say now was he or his Department responsible for the briefing of that official?

I have stated that the general outline of the rebutting case was put in writing on behalf of the Minister for Finance and myself.

That still does not answer me. I want to make it quite clear that before the discussions took place at all the Department prepared its case; the teachers prepared their case and it was then a matter of discussion, apart altogether from written communications or written evidence. There had to be discussion and questioning apart from the written statements. If a man is sent in to put the case for the Department it is necessary for him to produce more than documents. He must answer questions. There are other points that are bound to arise in the course of the discussion and it is up to him to give the Department's views. When it had reached the stage that the Department was short of arguments or were being beaten in their arguments, they produced this out of the bag, through the inspector, namely, that national teachers as such were not in the same category at all as secondary or vocational teachers.

The question arose—I do not want to refer to it in detail—as to the standard of the examinations. We know very well that a young man can go to the university to-morrow morning with his matriculation—he may not have his Leaving Certificate at all, let alone have honours in it—and he may not be as well qualified when he goes to the university as the entrant to the training college for the teaching profession. Yet the argument put forward is that the standard reached in training for national teaching is lower than that of the individual who goes on for his first arts in the university.

The whole thing that has arisen out of this is that teachers are perturbed that that feeling is there in the Department, and, perhaps, it was a slip that that feeling of the Department was let out so that the teachers really know now what is thought of them within that Department. I believe that the old vendetta that existed in that Department is there all the time, and if we are going to have a satisfactory approach to the problem of teachers and to education generally, whether it is primary, vocational, secondary or university, there will have to be a great deal of cleaning up done inside the Department of Education first, and the fossilised outlook that exists there will have to change.

As far as the Minister is personally concerned, I want him to understand that my belief is that he is being advised by the people who do not change with each Government, who are there for all time and who have a very conservative outlook. I think that as far as this House is concerned he should be assured that he will get all possible assistance here if he wishes to help the teachers in their claim for parity.

The Deputy is just being despicable in his remarks with regard to the Department on the one hand, and my relations with the Department on the other hand.

I am not worried very much about the Minister's views when I hear him saying that. I wanted to have the Minister put in the position that he would have the confidence of this House, so that he would then be able to see that the teachers' claims were properly met. But if the Minister comes into the House with the idea that he can attack us here as Deputies, because we put the teachers' case and put it properly for them, he is barking up the wrong tree.

I would like the Deputy to understand that when I say he is acting despicably I mean when he speaks of the Department and their attitude to the teachers and the relations between the Department's officers and myself.

The Minister will have the opportunity of replying if he wishes.

I have very little to say to the Deputy in reply. I have replied to him already.

I want to make it quite clear that we know that the reason why the teachers' claim for parity was not met was because it would cost too much money but if the Minister had the decency to instruct his officials to make that statement to the teachers then he would not be in this mess he is at the moment, when a responsible official of his Department is instructed by the Minister to describe these teachers in the terms in which they were described during the course of these discussions that took place. As far as I am personally concerned, I agree that the teachers are entitled to the same status, the same pay and the same rights as vocational and secondary teachers. Perhaps it is unfortunate for themselves that there are so many of them in it. I presume that I am precluded on the Supplementary Estimate from dealing with the parsimonious outlook down through the years in regard to the amount of money made available for education generally.

It would not arise on the Supplementary Estimate.

Dealing with the Supplementary Estimate itself, I want to say that we are asked to vote in this House the sum of £90,000 extra to the teachers. We know that a great number of teachers will not benefit to the extent of one penny as a result of this vote we are taking here this evening. If we took the £90,000 as a percentage of the total amount spent on education—the total amount on national education as given to us in this Vote is approximately £8,000,000— it is a mere fleabite.

From the point of view of the teachers, of the Department, of this House and the public generally, it would have been a better day's work if this question of the arbitration board had not come before the House at the present moment. The only alternative that is now left to the teachers is to pursue with the utmost vigour the fresh claims they have made, and I only hope that when these claims are being considered there will be more wisdom in the approach of the Department—and I presume the Minister himself will be involved—towards the problems and the discussions than has been shown so far in connection with conciliation and arbitration.

I do not propose to detain the House at any great length, but I rise on this occasion for the purpose of expressing my opinion and for the purpose of expressing my appreciation and admiration of the work that has been undertaken by the national teachers. The national teachers are a section of the community who are charged with very difficult and with very grave responsibility. It is very unfortunate to hear Deputies making the statement that any friction exists between the national teachers and the Department of Education. I feel that Deputies who would take that line are endeavouring only to upset the harmonious relations that do exist, and have always existed, between the teachers and the Department of Education.

The officers of the Department and the Minister for Education are charged with the very grave responsibility of administering that important Department. It is their job to advise and assist, to listen to and consider the grievances put forward by such an important section of the community as the teachers. Although I have had very close contact with national teachers I have never heard a national teacher stand up and say bluntly that the Department of Education was tooth and nail against them. On the contrary, the great bulk of our national teachers are people who admire and appreciate the advice and co-operation they have always had from the Department of Education.

Some people seem to have an axe to grind with every Department, and there probably are axes to grind with every Department, but when it comes to a question of national teachers, I feel that they are a section who are not alone highly cultured, but honest, straightforward and determined. There is no section of the community that has the very great responsibilities that the national teachers have and there is no profession looked up to with the same respect as the national teachers, particularly in rural districts, where the national teacher is the hub of every activity in the parish. He or she is responsible for sowing the seeds of good citizenship and for giving the first lectures in Christian doctrine to the children. All down through the years, the services of the national teachers have been admired and I think there is no finer body of men and women in this country to-day. I have always felt that and I feel that now, and I feel that it is part of my duty, as one who has been so closely associated with the national teachers, to say that I personally look on them as the finest body of professional people in the country.

And to say that there is no money for them.

The national teacher is also the poor man's professor.

He is a poor man himself.

He is the professor for the working man, the small farmer, the agricultural worker and all those people who cannot afford to send their children to universities or colleges, but who have to depend on him for the equipping of their children with the education necessary to enable them to face and fight the bitter battle of life. The national teacher all down through the years has discharged that duty with the greatest possible credit, and it is to be hoped that, as the older teachers retire, the young teachers taking their places will follow in their footsteps. These men who are going into retirement can look back on the years during which they served the country well and see their pupils go from success to success.

There is no doubt that the national school is the poor man's university. It is looked on as the poor man's university and it is only right that Deputies of all Parties should express their appreciation of both the Department of Education and the national teachers for what they have done in rural Ireland for the furtherance of the education of the poor man's child, the widow's child and the children of those who are less fortunate than the majority of us and who find it impossible to send their children to higher schools than the national school. It is because of that special attention by the national teacher to the poor man's child that the national teacher has always had a place near my heart. That is one of my reasons for rising to express appreciation of their services and on every occasion on which I found it possible to pay that tribute, I have done so.

In my constituency recently, a function took place which was organised by the Tullamore branch of the national teachers and I was invited to attend. I accepted the hospitality of the teachers and at the function there was present no less a person than the president of the I.N.T.O., together with other high officers of the organisation. In the course of the speeches which followed the function, references were made to the arbitration award and it was stated that there was a shortage of funds, and that funds were not available for a more favourable award. These statements were made in my presence and in my hearing, and in the presence of high officers of the I.N.T.O. I felt it my duty, apart entirely from my capacity as a local public representative, as one keenly interested in the welfare of the teachers, to take the first available opportunity to deny that such was the case.

The newspaper reports which gave details of that function, and particularly the daily papers of Saturday, 5th November last, contained the report that it was I who said there were no funds available for the purpose. The Offaly Independent of that date shows clearly that I said there was no question at any time of restricting funds for this purpose. I want now, for the purpose of the records of this House and particularly as the matter was raised here by more than one Deputy, to take the opportunity of denying the Press reports, the incorrect reports, so far as my speech is concerned. I never made the statement and the national teachers who were present know quite well that, instead of the statement attributed to me, I made the very opposite statement on that occasion. For the records of the House, I want to make it clear that on no occasion during that function in Tullamore did I say there was any question of funds not being available and I undertook to deny the statement made by an officer of the I.N.T.O. that such was the case. I trust that that denial will be entered on the records so that my position in the matter will be made known. Every teacher present at the function knew quite well the statement which the public Press attributed to me was not made by me.

As the House is now being asked to provide funds to meet the award, I want to compliment the Minister and to pay tribute to him for seeking the approval of the House for the provision of these funds. Whether the award is favourable or unfavourable, the Minister is asking the House for the funds to meet the award, unlike other occasions when awards which were made were dishonoured. This is an award made and being honoured, and I am glad to be associated with the honouring of any award made to any section of the people. It would be the lowest possible form for any Government to disown or dishonour an award made by an arbitration board set up and charged with the responsibility of making an award.

No Government that I have ever been associated with has failed to do otherwise than to honour any awared made. That is why I congratulate the Minister and I feel that the fact that the award is being honoured is a good thing. I am glad that the Minister has lost no time in seeking approval for the expenditure of the necessary funds to meet the award. Again may I say that the national teachers are the finest body of people in the country and I am glad to see the speed with which the Minister and the Department have taken action for the implementation of the award?

I had no intention of taking part in this debate until I heard the last speaker. Now we have presented to us the extraordinary spectacle that, at a meeting of teachers in Tullamore, some high officials of the I.N.T.O. made the statement to their fellow-delegates that the Government did not have sufficient money to meet the ambitions of the teachers in regard to salaries. It seems to me that the particular teachers who made that statement seemed to have more concern for the Government and the Minister for Education than the junior Minister who spoke at Tullamore at the same meeting.

The Parliamentary Secretary has told us quite frankly that there was no shortage of money to meet any possible award that might be brought in by this arbitration. The teachers and the I.N.T.O. should note that statement because any of us who read the reports in the newspapers or the results of the arbitration felt that what the teachers said in Tullamore was, in fact, the case. We all gather from these reports that the Government went the limit in the matter of providing extra salaries and that, in fact, the position did not permit them to go any further. It is quite obvious that what Deputy McQuillan said was true. I say it is obvious because a thing may be obvious and still not be true but it seems quite obvious that those who put the Government case at the arbitration were, all the time, limited in their concessions by this overriding factor, that the amount of money available was too limited to allow them to go even as far as they themselves would be prepared to go to meet the teachers' claim.

There was one thing that the Government side of the arbitration did not do. They did not beslaver the teachers with a lot of tongue-in-the-cheek praise and I am not going to start beslavering the teachers. We know the teachers have been doing good work and it is not necessary for anyone in this House to praise them so that they will continue to do that good work. The other thing appears to have happened. If there were any side issues, other than the discussions on the straight financial issues involved, the Government spokesmen seemed to have criticised the teachers. I think that the Minister was only doing his duty when he absolved the particular official in question from the blame attached to him in the statement published in the Press.

What I wish to refer to particularly is not so much the merits of this arbitration as to draw attention to the very great similarity in effect, if not in the method of arbitration, of the attitude of the present Government on questions such as teachers' demands and the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Government. I do not accept the statement of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture that the Government was willing to provide much more money for teachers' salaries at this arbitration than they have provided. I believe that the Minister would have given twice as much if he could have afforded it. That is my belief and opinion, and I believe that the Government went as far as their financial advisers permitted them to go. That is just exactly the attitude, although shown in a different manner, of the Fianna Fáil Government.

Their case was stated like this—that where it came to a large body of public servants, no matter what their duties were the Government and the Dáil are in fact the real arbitrators, that they are the best judges as to how much the public purse can afford to any section of public servants and that to delegate that authority to any body without responsibility would be a negation of democracy. I do not presume to quote the exact words of former Ministers but the impression I have is that that is the purport of it. In effect, this arbitration has intimated just that much and no more.

What I do object to in this particular arbitration, and I hope we will not have any repetition of it, is that the entire onus is placed on one person, the person who happened to be chairman, and that person, I understand, was appointed by the Government. I take it that the appointment would have been submitted to the other parties to the arbitration.

It was agreed by both sides.

I take it that the appointment of the chairman would be made by the Government.

The claimants were asked to submit a number of names that they would be prepared to accept and arising out of the discussion on that, the chairman was selected.

That is a minor detail of procedure. The fact is that where you had such a clear-cut diversion of viewpoints, and where the Government's spokesmen had their minds pretty definitely made up as to the limitations of finance, and where the teachers equally had their minds made up as to the minimum they were prepared to accept, it does seem to me an undue burden to place on the person who had to act as chairman of this arbitration.

Is it to go out to the I.N.T.O. now that in fact there was no such limitation on finance, and that the Government could afford more money for increases of salaries if the arbitration had decided that bigger increases were justly coming to the teachers? That is the effect of the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary, and I take it that he is talking with the authority of the Government behind him, and that those teachers who tried to ease the case for the Government at conferences of teachers down the country were in fact wide of the mark and that their apologia for the Government was quite unwarranted by the facts. This gives an entirely new slant to this arbitration, and I do feel that it is an occasion which we on this side of the House cannot let go by because of the very vehement manner in which the Fine Gael Party particularly attacked the Fianna Fáil Government for not being more enthusiastic about arbitration.

Now we find that when the ball is at their own feet they go through the forms of arbitration while in effect, apparently, they have predetermined the matter by the factor to which I have referred. It may be that Fine Gael, too, is mindful of its obligation to the public in regard to the dispensing of public finances, and that because of their previous statements in an attempt to vilify the Fianna Fáil Government in relation to arbitration they now are salving their consciences in the matter but have gone through the pretence and the form of arbitration which on the showing of the teachers themselves was in fact worse than no arbitration at all.

If the teachers as one organised body of public servants have been dealt a salutary lesson on the matter of public pronouncements and promises by organised political Parties on matters such as this, well then a good deal of progress has been made, in any event, in educating the public mind as to how far any Party in opposition can go in relation to those promises when in fact the mantle of responsibility has been cast upon them. If the Fine Gael Party have chosen to honour their responsibilities even at the expense of sacrificing those to whom they made the promises, if this is the issue, they have shown a good deal of moral courage. The degree of moral courage, however, would be much greater if in fact they had not gone through the farce and the pretence of arbitration and had said quite plainly in a few words to the national teachers that this in fact was their attitude and that they had no other way out in view of their responsibilities to the public. I hope that no such farce and hypocrisy will be attempted again, and that people who cannot get what they want will not be in any event exasperated by having to go through these empty forms.

It is obvious to anyone that there are people in this country who will make every effort to drive a wedge between the Minister and the teachers. I am quite satisfied that the little storm that has arisen during the last few weeks will blow over, because no one has done more than the present Minister for Education to ease the lot of the national teachers over the last 30 years. No group of people in this country, organised or unorganised, suffered more humiliations for 20 years than the national teachers and had it not been for the fact that the inter-Party Government came in in 1948 and brought in, through arbitration, the means of remedying various grievances we would be in a poor plight to-day. Much has been done on behalf of the teachers and, given time, much more will be done to smooth the roughnesses that have to be smoothed out yet.

Listening to Deputy McQuillan one would think that nobody but himself had any heart or thought for the teachers or for this country or for anything. He is the only Irish Irelander this country has produced over the last 30 years. I am sick and tired of that class of tripe, because I throw my mind back over the years when his type did not do very much for us or for anybody else. Now he is trying to make little of this side of the House and the other, to bring out that he and he alone is the great defender of everything good in this country. I know the way his words are taken in the country. They are taken with a bit of salt. People know why he has such a bee in his bonnet. Everybody knows it right well.

There is no body of people for whom I have higher respect than the national teachers, not because I am mixed up with the teaching profession myself, but because I know them from my infancy and know what they have done for the building up of Ireland through 1910, 1912, 1916 and ever since. They did it the hard way and some of them had not £50 a year as salary. No tribute good enough can be paid to the Irish national teachers. The foundation of this State is in their hands, and so is its undoing. I want to see that the national teachers' problems are smoothed and eased out as far as possible, but we do not expect these things to happen overnight. We cannot wave a magic want to clear away all the obstacles, but I am satisfied, from what the Minister has done over the past short few years that he has ruled in that Department, that he has changed the life of the teachers of this country and given them a ray of hope. They know that there is at least one man who will stand for fair, just and honest treatment for the group of people who have the destinies and hope of this country in their hands.

I know that there are many grievances which the teachers and the ex-teachers suffer from that should be settled and I believe will be settled, but they cannot all be settled overnight. When an arbitration board sits and makes its award that award is more or less final and neither the Minister nor the Government should interfere. There will be more and perhaps bigger awards in time to come. Let the arbitration board do its work. It is the child of the present Minister and the teachers are proud and glad of the fact. He is a man of great patience, forbearance and consistency, and I am quite satisfied that if he gets five years of patient service in that Department he will do many things and put the teachers in the proud position that they will be satisfied and happy that they are on the right road and that they will be the custodians of the resurgence of the Ireland of to-morrow because they will be a peaceful, contented body of men and know that they are getting everything that the Minister can give them. He cannot do all these things overnight. There are people in this country who are mad seeking to drive a wedge between the Minister and the national teachers, all because he was the one man who tried in a conciliatory way to bring people together and now they want to undo that work.

Do not think that all the teachers of this country are up in arms about what has happened. They are no such thing. They are a level-headed body of sensible people and they know what has happened. They know the resources of this State and that they are being levelled out to meet the different claims that arise from time to time. This country is in a critical position at the moment, as critical as it was three or four years ago. It will be so for the next five or ten years until the world situation eases. If it does not, we shall be in just as deplorable a position as any other country.

With the State resources at our disposal, we are doing good solid work in every sphere of life. What the Minister is doing at the present moment is great, noble and national work. He set up an arbitration board. He has tried to bring peace between the Department and the strongest body of people in this country, the I.N.T.O. Those people are fighting for parity with other teachers. To my mind they are right although some other people say they are not. It is certain that nobody will stand in their way when they want to fight for their rights. When the day comes that they achieve parity then we shall have more peace and progress.

The national teacher is one of the hardest worked persons in the country. You may laugh, but I say he is almost the parish hack. Everybody comes to him to fill in this form, that form and the other form. He has to work for the bishops, the clergy and the laity. He has to do all that for small remuneration and, in many cases, he gets nothing at all. He is glad to do whatever he can because he treats his vocation in the real sense, as, indeed, it is a vocation and a calling. The teacher's calling is the most noble calling after that of the Church. Instead of muddying dirty water, we ought to try to smooth the path for those people. It is none of my business to speak on what happened between a certain head inspector and themselves: that is their business. The less we speak in this House on those things the better. Let us get on with the job of conciliating and bringing about peace where there are troubled waters.

I know the teachers will give thanks for services rendered. Great services were rendered to the teachers from 1948 to the present day and bigger and more noble services will be rendered to them in the future. The Minister has the backing of everybody and of everything that is good in this country. He is doing good and noble work. I would say he has the wish of 90 per cent. of the members of this House in the work he is doing. We say to him: "God bless you in the work you are doing for the teachers".

The Minister introduced arbitration. For years and years our teachers were in the most humiliating position. They had to go on strike and that is something for which we may all hold our heads in shame. Imagine allowing that body of men and women to go on strike. It will never happen again and it should not have happened in the past. I pray to God that the days ahead will bring peace between everybody connected with education in this country. That is where the foundation of the State is being laid. That is where the good work is being done. That is where the Ireland of to-morrow will spring from.

Is soiléir gurb é an rud atá os ár gcomhair ná éifeacht a thabhairt don Mheastachán Breise seo. Ní dóigh liom féin go bfuil aon dul as ach a bheith páirteach sa ghníomh sin. Do tháinig na daoine sin i gceann a chéile, do phlé siad an cheist a bhí os a gcomhair agus sé seo an toradh a tháinig as agus tá sé os ár gcomhair anois sa Tigh seo anocht.

I think we have a very simple issue to decide in this House this evening. We have before us the report of an arbitration award. Whether or not we agree with it fundamentally, it is at least considered by everybody the final step in negotiations. If any fault is to be found either with the machinery of the negotiations—with the method by which they arrived at their decisions— or with the decisions themselves then these are matters to be remedied on some other occasion.

To my mind, there is no fault to be found with calling attention to these matters.

I have had, in various spheres, the resolving of disoutes in various walks of life. I have always had great hopes from joint industrial councils and from conciliation bodies who meet across a table and try to resolve their differences. Many of these have proved very successful. In this sphere also I have hopes that conciliation and arbitration methods will be put on such a basis that they will serve not only the interests of those who are seeking awards from them but the general public interest as well.

Perhaps other educationists or business men may be brought into these particular arbitration bodies eventually. At any rate, the point we have before us this evening is whether or not we are prepared to implement the decision as it stands. To my mind, there is definitely no way out but to do that. Perhaps some of the things that have arisen in public debate over the whole scheme of things were rather unfortunate: perhaps people were too impulsive one way or another. Everybody in this country, including the Minister, knows that the national teachers desire no apologia. Their work and their record stand for all time at the highest possible level.

An issue of parity has been raised. That is not for consideration here now, but I think everybody will agree that, in the teaching professions, there should be a basic professional parity that they are engaged in somewhat similar duties and functions. The same is in allied trades. There have grown up, in the ordinary system and scheme of things, differentials even between people in work of a similar nature and these are recognised by the trade unions themselves, and also forth.

When we are considering the question of basic parity, that does not rule out differentials in various ways according to the functions of those who are working in the educational system. For instance, you compare a national teacher with a secondary teacher. I think, myself, that these comparisons are quite unfortunate by reason of the fact that a national teacher has to qualify in at least 12 if not 15 subjects. He has to be able to teach those in the national schools, whereas other people specialise in from two to five subjects. They have to teach those on a high standard, but national teachers themselves without any great effort have been able to qualify up to these standards also, in getting degrees in the university.

The vocational teachers have to go out and work at night, perhaps provide their own transport and travel in difficult weather conditions. I do not want to go into these variations and differences here; they may be debated on another occasion. The national teacher has to qualify in Irish, English, Arithemetic, Algebra, Geometry, History, Geography, Drawing, Music, Nature Study, Hygiene and all the rest. He has to go through a long course of training to qualify not only in a knowledge of these subjects but in ability to impart that knowledge to others. In consequence, his work and great responsibility in the public life of the country should be recognised by giving him—regardless of whether it is parity with others or not—a good professional basic salary when he is starting off in life and steady progress afterwards, so that he will not take too long to reach the highest grades in his profession.

We all know the contention that has arisen in this matter. These things occur from time to time in various walks of life. We all should set ourselves in the national interest to remedy any differences or difficulties that have arisen. We all regret that the award is not better. It came from a scheme that was accepted. This House has a simple duty to implement that award and then face the future with such knowledge as we have gained and such developments as are obvious to many of us.

As one associated with arbitrations from time to time, I naturally accept arbitration awards as such. We have reached a time in Ireland when our young qualified teachers are paid too small a salary. The majority of the children in rural Ireland have to depend on a primary education. Instead of making the teachers' case the toy of politicians across the floor of the House, I would like to see the system of education in the rural schools improved and the primary teacher taken out of that category and told he would be given a reasonable salary. No one in this country wants an exorbitant salary: all they want is a living wage. I hold that the young teacher after being qualified is not given a living wage and we are not getting the best out of him. No teacher will refuse to do his best but I hold, as I have held here for the last 12 years, that unless a man's economic circumstances are happy and unless he is reasonably well off in his home and can come to the school clear of any ecomonic worries he cannot give of his best to the pupils.

I hold from the national viewpoint —and irrespective of what side of the House I am on I always have held these national views—we should take our teachers out of that particular category and try to make them as happy as we can. We should give them all the encouragement we can as far as the resources of the nation can afford it. In doing that we will do something worth while for our children and for generations to come. So long as we are bartering over a pound or two or over £100,000 or £200,000 in awards, we cannot hope to make progress towards a solution of our problems. We should get down to the kernel of the whole position. Perhaps this Dáil could go even further than that, to examine the whole position from a national viewpoint economically and say we believe that the teachers are not paid as they should be.

The unfortunate thing we have in this country—and it is growing up—is this class distinction, Grade I, Grade II and Grade III. If a man is qualified to teach and feels competent to do so and passes the examinations, surely he should be on a par with other teachers in other grades and professions. We have distinctions drawn here and there all over the country. I believe seriously that we should say to our teachers: "We believe here in this national Parliament of Ireland that you are doing a good job; you have our sympathy and our consideration; the Department will do what it can for you; successive Ministers feel this is a national problem."

I have never changed on this problem. I am able to stand over every word I said. I challenge the Parliamentary Secretary to look at the records of the debates in the Dáil under previous Ministers for Education. I am deeply concerned over this and am not making a Party issue of it. As I said, I stood up here as a man associated with conciliation and arbitration from time to time. I am accepting that as such but, having stated that I accept it, I am stating that I am not satisfied that the teachers are getting a square deal at all. The sooner we realise the importance of the teaching profession and the sooner we try to uplift our rural pupils who have no chance of going to advanced schools, the sooner we will be contributing something to this nation. The people in sheltered positions have an opportunity of going to secondary schools and are able to look after themselves, but we have an obligation to try to get more for those who have not that opportunity and can get only a primary education.

Deputy Derrig asked about the distribution of these moneys. The Deputy will have seen in the documents that have been placed in the House in regard to this arbitration scheme, that in the classification schools there are 7,867 trained teachers, 100 pre-1921 untrained teachers and 1,972 post-1920 untrained teachers. Therefore, the untrained teachers in numbers are about a quarter of the trained. The amount of money that will go to the capitation schools will be about one-third of the amount of money going to the classification schools. I think it is better to give the figure in fractions in this connection. Let us return to money terms. In the classification schools the money would be divided somewhat like this—for trained teachers about £164,000; for untrained teachers, about £20,000. Some small additions have then to be made. For the capitation schools the total amount of money would be about £63,000. In one way or another that totals up to about £260,000. The rest of the £275,000, £15,000, will be the immediate effect of the proposals on superannuation and the ultimate effect of the proposals on superannuation, between ten and 15 years, will bring that £15,000 up to £50,000.

I particularly appreciate the atmosphere created at the end of this debate by Deputy MacCarthy. I would recommend those who take an interest in the matter or who are likely to take an interest in the matter to refer to two documents which are in the Library. One of these is "The Scheme for the Concialiation and Arbitration Machinery". It is a document dated 11th December, 1954, and it is signed by myself as Minister for Education, the Minister for Finance, the President of the I.N.T.O. at that time, and two other representatives. The second document is "The Findings and Report" of the chairman of the recent arbitration board. It is dated 1st October, 1955.

With regard to the scheme of arbitration itself, Deputy Cunningham seemed to think that I was taking objection to criticism of the award by the representatives of the I.N.T.O. No. I would direct the attention of the House to paragraph 6 of the agreement which reads:—

"In the period between the date of notification of a matter for discussion by the conciliation council and either

(i) the date on which the decision of the Ministers to accept an agreed recommendation is conveyed to the conciliation council or

(ii) the date on which the Government, in accordance with paragraph 44 of the scheme, present the report of the arbitration board to Dáil Éireann

the I.N.T.O. shall not sponsor nor resort to any form of public agitation in furtherance of their case nor shall the I.N.T.O. move any outside body to make representations on their behalf."

There is just a "close season" between the date of the notification of a claim and the date upon which the final proceedings have taken place in respect of which criticism, agitation or propaganda in relation to the matter under consideration is taboo. After that there is as much freedom on the part of the organisation to argue, complain and criticise as there ever was.

The thing I want to draw attention to is the campaign of criticism and misrepresentation directed against the chief inspector. I welcome very much the remarks from every Deputy in the House, including Deputy McQuillan, with regard to the chief inspector. I appreciate that very much. As far as the remarks made about the Department and the Department's relations with the teachers are concerned, there are some things you require silence to appreciate. Having regard to the goodness in humanity, I think the Deputies who criticised the Department will discover in quieter and more silent moments that they have a greater appreciation of the Department than their words would suggest.

The House generally appreciates the wonderful contribution given to the teaching service of the country by the work, spirit and mentality of the officials of the Department of Education from the highest to the most junior positions. There is nothing further that I require to say. The two documents are before the House. A very considerable amount of information and illumination with regard to the problem under discussion by the arbitration board will be found in the chairman's report.

Deputy Cunningham seemed to be mixed up in his approach. The matter discussed at arbitration and the basis upon which the awards were made are clearly indicated in the statement I made to the House originally. I am quite satisfied from the remarks made that everybody is satisfied that the setting up of conciliation and arbitration machinery is an important attempt to do justice to the claims of all the teachers concerned and to enable justice to be arrived at in the most efficient and effective way. As I said, the machinery for conciliation is there. It guarantees to the Dáil that, when a proposal comes before it, it has been fully, exhaustively and carefully considered.

I hope that in the utilisation of the machinery of arbitration it will be accepted that whatever dust arises from arguments which take place inside that machinery will remain there when the proceedings are closed and an award is given and that any matter which has been considered and has to be discussed will be discussed on its merits and in the broad and general atmosphere of the circumstances of our lives.

I feel sure that whatever difficulties there may have been over the present matter—and I appreciate Deputy MacCarthy's remarks on that—we will have a system of arbitration and conciliation, even if it has to be improved. At any rate the scheme as it is at the present moment is there working in a very serious way and in a very efficient manner. There may be an improvement on that. We welcome the continued use of the machinery of arbitration and conciliation. We hope it will continue to work efficiently and that it will be used in a spirit of acceptance.

Vote put and agreed to.
Supplementary Estimate reported and agreed to.
The Dáil adjourned at 6.15 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16th, 1955.
Top
Share