Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Mar 1960

Vol. 180 No. 10

Committee on Finance. - Vote 37—Primary Education.

Aire Oideachais (Pádraig Ó hIrighile)

Tairgim:—

Go ndeonófar suim fhorlíontach nach mó ná £360,000 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1960, le haghaidh Bunoideachais, lena n-áirítear Aoisliúntas Múinteoirí Scoile Náisiúnta, etc., ar a n-áirítear Deontas-i-gCabhair.

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £360,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for Primary Education, including National School Teachers' Superannuation, etc., including a Grant-in-Aid.

The purpose of this Supplementary Estimate is to make available a sum of money which will enable further ex-gratia payments to be made to existing pensioned national teachers who had retired before the 1st January, 1950, and to surviving widows of deceased pensioned national teachers who had similarly retired on pension. There is I am sure no Deputy in the House who at one time or another has not been asked to raise his voice on behalf of the pre-1950 pensioned teachers. Accordingly, there is no need for me to go into detail as to what is involved.

That highly esteemed man, the late Seán Moylan, as Minister for Education in 1953 obtained the authority of Dáil Éireann to make the first of the ex-gratia payments to these pensioned teachers. While the pensioners in question expressed themselves as highly gratified by what was done for them then they have, nevertheless, in the meantime pursued with vigour their claim that they should in the matter of lump sum be treated similarly to those who retired on or after the 1st January, 1950.

I must stress in relation to that claim that the persons concerned have received everything to which the Pension Schemes governing their cases entitled them—in other words they have received their full legal entitlement.

Having said that, I am very glad that financial circumstances this year are such as to enable the Government to authorise me to approach the House with a proposal to make money available so that the surviving pensioners or the surviving widows in question may be paid what they would call "the balance of the lump sum".

It is proposed to make the ex-gratia payment within the next two months to the pensioners or widows then alive.

It is also proposed to make a like payment in the case of pensioned secondary teachers or their widows who are similarly circumstanced. As there is ample money for that purpose available in the Secondary Teachers' Superannuation Fund no supplementary estimate on the Secondary Education Vote is required. It is the intention to make payment in these cases also within the next two months and in anticipation of the necessary amending Pensions Scheme.

Mr. Dillon

This Supplementary Estimate will, I imagine, meet with the approval of all sides of the House. The facts are substantially as the Minister has stated them. All Deputies will be glad that it will be possible to find the money to meet this claim put forward by this category of people who, rightly or wrongly, labour under a sense of grievance. I should like to be clear on this. Does the payment of this sum represent the total claim made on behalf of this category of teachers? I have a distinct recollection of the claim being cancelled, but the actual details escape me.

Dr. Hillery

This represents an ex-gratia payment, the full payment for these people.

Mr. Dillon

I think it does represent the full claim. We are glad it was possible to find money for this purpose. We are prepared to agree to the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. McQuillan

I should like to congratulate the Minister on the step he has taken. For the past seven or eight years, claims have been pressed by this neglected section of the people for their just rights. Both the inter-Party Government and Ministers in former Fianna Fáil Governments, for reasons which never seemed quite sufficient to the general public, at any rate, turned down the claims of these teachers. The Minister in this Supplementary Estimate, instead of actually recognising as a right the claims made by this category of teachers, has agreed that they had a very genuine grievance by making an ex-gratia payment.

It is very difficult at times for a Minister to alter a decision, rejecting a particular decision come to by his predecessors. It is often even more difficult when that decision has to be altered within a Government, formed from a Party from which has come a chain of Ministers. I think on that basis that the action of the Minister is to be highly commended in that he has reversed a decision of his predecessors in office. It is a good omen for the future because goodwill between the teaching profession, the Minister and his Department is involved.

Micheál Mac Cárthaigh

Gabhaim míle comhgáirdeachas leis an Aire Oideachais, leis an Aire Airgeadais atá in a shuí in aice leis agus leis an Rialtas, ar ndóigh, chomh maith——

Séamus Diolún

Agus leis an bhfear eile.

Micheál Mac Cárthaigh

——agus leis an iar-Aire, mar gheall ar an socrú atá déanta——

Séamus Diolún

Ná déan dearmad ar éinne.

Micheál Mac Carthaigh

——i leith na sean-mhúinteoirí. Le blianta beaga anuas bhí na sean-mhúinteoirí ag iarraidh teacht ar a gceart. Tá cuid acu imithe ar shlí na fírinne agus tá cuid acu beo. Go mairidh siad a nuaíocht.

The Minister and the Government——

Séamus Diolún

Téigh ar aghaidh i nGaeilge. Do thosnaigh tú go maith.

Micheál Mac Cárthaigh

Agus críochnóidh mé go maith. The Minister and the Government are to be sincerely congratulated on the manner in which they met the claim of the pre-1950 pensioned teachers. It is significant that the first payment was made by a Fianna Fáil Minister and the balance had to be met by another Fianna Fáil Minister. Más maith é is mithid.

Everybody in this House knows that the claim was backed by practically every public body in the State and that, as Deputy Dillon said, every Deputy, Senator and member of a public authority was canvassed. The I.N.T.O. are to be congratulated on the successful culmination of their campaign to keep this problem on the public conscience. I am sure that nobody is more pleased than the Deputies in this House. As Deputy McQuillan said, the Minister for Education did a good day's work. It has already enhanced and will continue greatly to enhance the reputation he has earned for himself in the few short months since he was appointed Minister for Education.

Mr. Corish

I agree entirely with the provision of this money for the pre-1950 national teachers. I should like to congratulate the Minister for bringing in this Supplementary Estimate. I do not think it is true to say that any Minister for Education turned down this proposal out of hand. The Ministers for Education in recent years found difficulty in providing this money. They were not reluctant to provide it. That can be said of the Ministers on both sides of the House. The Minister for Finance has found it possible to pass the money over to the Minister for Education. Let us hope that this is an indication that similar amounts of money will be available this day four weeks when the Minister for Finance brings in his Budget.

Pádraig Ó Fachtna

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an Aire as ucht an méid atá déanta aige chun an t-airgead seo a chur ar fáil do na sean-mhúinteoirí. Bhí an t-airgead seo tuillte acu. B'fhéidir nach raibh sé tuillte acu de réir an dlí ach bhí sé tuillte acu de réir an dlí mhorálta. Is é tuairim an Tí seo agus tuairim mhuintir na tíre go ndearna an tAire an rud ceart agus an t-airgead seo a chur ar fáil do na daoine seo.

I wish to welcome this Supplementary Estimate, because it gives certain financial help to a hard pressed and deserving section of the community, but, perhaps, particularly because it shows that where a battle is fought on a moral issue victory can lie with the weaker side.

Reference was made to the legal side of the claim. Everybody will agree that the pre-1950 teachers had not got a legal claim, and the teachers themselves admitted that they had not got a legal claim, but they had something which I feel was much more important, that is, a right in justice to this money. When the retirement gratuity was first brought in in 1950, it was a step in the right direction, but the arbitrary line drawn at that time between the pre-1950 and the post-1950 pensioned teachers was unfair. I shall not use the word "unjust." The teaching organisation, to which I have the honour to belong, pressed the point at all times that it was unfair and did their utmost to have the position rectified. The late Deputy Moylan was the first to recognise the justice of the claim of the pre-1950 pensioned teachers and he paid what approximated to one-third of their demand. He gave an ex-gratia payment, which, as I say, was about one-third of their demand. But the teachers, the teaching body, and the pensioned teachers were never satisfied that they were not entitled to the full demand. They pressed the claim with the happy result we have today.

I think at no time in the history of Irish education have there been such harmonious relations as exist at present between the Department of Education and the teaching body. Everybody who is interested in education realises that to further the education of our children and the welfare of the nation, it is absolutely essential that we have harmonious relations between the authority and the teachers. I feel that the Minister will now take his place in the hearts of these old pensioners with the late Seán Moylan who, as I said, was the first to recognise the justice of the claim of the pre-1950 pensioned teachers.

Mr. Lindsay

The fact that a claim is not met at any particular time never means, and never can mean, that the justice of that claim is not recognised. Whatever the means adopted whereby this result has been achieved it is a happy result and one which should be the subject matter of joy for all Deputies on all sides of the House. It is the culmination of a great effort on the part of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation and the body representing the pre-1950 retired teachers themselves. It is particularly important that the claims of these people should have been met before all of them had died because it is to the teachers of that particular era that this country owes most. Apart altogether from the exacting task involved in education, they taught nationality and whilst that teaching still goes on, I think that during their period of service, more than any other time, the national teachers did a very large amount of very valuable and useful work in conjunction with representatives of the majority Church.

It is gratifying then to find that one of these rather ragged ends that occur from time to time in our finances has been removed by this gesture on the part of the Minister and his Department. It is an example, too, of how a Minister, in the early stages of his administration, can arrive at a decision which might be made difficult, if time were allowed to slip by. To conclude, then, may I say how pleased I am not alone politically but personally and from a national point of view that this matter has been finally resolved because I think no amount either by way of remuneration while in service or by pension out of service, is too great for the primary teachers, having regard to the tremendous job they have to do and the magnificent manner in which they do it.

Mr. Kitt

I wish to add my voice to that of previous speakers in congratulating the Minister on bringing this matter to a successful conclusion. Some of the men and women left in this band of pre-1950 pensioned teachers had to retire on very small pensions. Their claim, as the Minister said, even though they may not be fully legally entitled to the moneys which they are now to enjoy, was, as everybody realised, one which should have been recognised in justice. A former Minister for Education, the late Seán Moylan, God rest him, recognised that when he made the ex-gratia payment.

I do not believe that any Minister ever refused to sanction the payment of this money but there were difficulties over which Ministers had no control. They had to deal with the Minister for Finance and there was always the hope that when times improved the balance of the money now being granted would be given. It is a good sign of the times and a sign that the country is getting on to its feet again, due to the Fianna Fáil administration, that we now have a Minister for Finance who is able to hand over to the Minister for Education this money to pay the balance of the retirement gratuity to these pensioned teachers.

I agree with Deputy Lindsay that there is no section of people more entitled to money from the State than this small band of teachers because as is said in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, they bore the burden and the heat of the day. In the days of the Gaelic League and when the State was being founded, they had to pass through a transition period when their salaries were very low. Some of them had to go out on very low pensions. I know of some cases where if they had a little less they would be entitled to the old age pension to supplement the small pension on which they retired. Therefore, this will be a godsend to some of these teachers. The Irish National Teachers' Organisation and the Pensioned Teachers' Association are to be congratulated on the fight they have made down the years with successive Ministers. They have finally succeeded and the Minister must be congratulated for his kind and gracious act.

Pádraig Ó Dubhlaoich

Ba mhaith liom cuidiú leis an Rún seo, agus buíochas a ghabháil leis an Aire mar gheall ar an socrú atá déanta. Tá moladh ag dul don Aire agus don Rialtas agus do Theachtaí de gach Páirtí a chuidigh leís an liúntas a thabhairt do na múinteoirí náisiúnta. Go mór mór, tá ard-mholadh ag dul do na sean-phinsinéirí as ucht na troda a rinne siad. Tá mé cinnte go mbeidh gach Teachta annseo toilteanach cuidiú agus glacadh leis an Rún seo.

Mr. Coogan

I should like to join with the other Deputies and pedagogues who have already spoken and congratulate the Minister on putting through a scheme to meet an honest and just case. I hope the Minister will continue in that attitude, so far as University College Galway is concerned.

Mr. W. Murphy

I should be lacking in my duty, particularly as a Clare man, if I did not congratulate the Minister on his achievement. Over the years, I have sympathised with the position of the pre-1950 pensioned teachers. I saw them tottering along the corridors of this house, knocking at the Ministerial door, as it were, and asking for something to which they were fully entitled—money very well earned and earned under conditions different from and harder than those enjoyed by the teachers of to-day. I repeat I am very glad to note that it took a Clare man as Minister to solve that problem after ten years and give those teachers what they were entitled to have.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I also welcome——

Mr. Dillon

Beagáinín beag Gaeilge anois.

Mr. P.J. Burke

——what the Minister has done to-day for the pre-1950 pensioned teacher. Some of them are over 80 and some of them are on very small pensions. Now they have succeeded in achieving what they set out to achieve. It is a great tribute to their tenacity in making representations. Their organisation should be heartily congratulated, as should be the I.N.T.O., on doing a very good job. I must compliment the Minister on his courtesy and on having succeeded at last in righting the grave injustice perpetrated on those teachers.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote reported and agreed to.