asked the Minister for Education in what circumstances teaching experience outside the Republic is recognised for State salary incremental purposes; if service in certain African countries is not recognised in respect of clerics while it is recognised in respect of lay persons; and the reason for this discrimination.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Foreign Teaching Service.
72.
As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the Deputy to my reply of 22nd March, 1962, to a similar question.
In relation to the second part, the position is that the religious communities who made representations to me in the matter stressed their wish that such recognition should be confined to lay teachers.
Has the Minister received any representation recently from the Catholic Headmasters' Association and, if so, what was the effect?
The question is one of misunderstanding of the intention of limiting this concession to lay teachers. As I told Deputies last week, the concession was to help these emergent nations by attracting lay teachers to go there and therefore it was not necessary to apply it to missionary priests and brothers who were already going. We were not asked to apply it to them. I did not explain that at the time and I think, perhaps, some religious organisations felt there was discrimination against them. It was not intended. The idea was to attract lay teachers to these emergent countries and the people who asked me to do so stressed that they did not require any concessions for people already going there for other motives.