I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £210,330 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1965, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education (including Institutions of Science and Art) for certain Miscellaneous Educational and Cultural Services, and sundry Grants-in-Aid.
The additional sums being provided in this Supplementary Estimate are required for the following purposes:—
A.1—Salaries, Wages and Allowances : Provision is made in the Supplementary Estimate for payment of the general increases in salaries allowed with effect from 1st February, 1964, the ninth round, and also for certain status increases with effect from 1 January, 1964. The increases result from agreed recommendations or awards under the Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme for civil servants.
A.2—Travelling and Incidental Expenses: The excess in the subhead is occasioned by improvements allowed, subsequent to the preparation of the original estimate, in the terms of recoupment of travelling, subsistence and removal expenses. These improvements were in accordance with agreed recommendations made by the General Council of the Civil Service Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme. The relevant regulations were issued in June and July, 1964, and had retrospective effect to different dates, 1st April, 1962, 1st January, 1964, and 1st April, 1964.
A.3—Post Office Services: These services are provided by the office of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs on a repayment basis. The extra cost has been attributed by that office to the higher public postal charges in force since 1st June, 1964, and to certain other increased charges arising from pay increases to members of the staff.
C.1—Purchase of Specimens: The increase of £5,600 in the Grant-in-Aid under this subhead to the National Museum arises from the purchase of a large silver two-handled porringertype bowl (Richard Smart, Cork, about 1675) which was among a collection of Irish silver auctioned at Messrs. Christies, London, in December last. It is a very important early piece of Irish provincial work and bidding for it was extremely keen. It was necessary to bid up to £5,600 to secure it for the Museum. In this connection I may say that prices for all works of art have been increasing steadily over the past few years and the price of this important and early piece of silver was merely in consonance with current market values.
F.3—Grants to Colleges providing Courses in Irish : The extra sum required reflects the continuing increase in the number of students attending courses in the colleges in recent years. The extent of the increase has been such as to cause an excess in the original estimate for the subhead in each of the last three financial years. In 1961/2 expenditure was over £29,000 as compared with the estimate of £25,000, and in 1962/3 the expenditure was £36,600 approximately, when the estimate was £35,500. The estimate for 1963/4 at £39,000 was exceeded by over £2,300. The original estimate for 1964/5 was put at £44,000 but expenditure is now expected to reach £47,000. This upsurge in the numbers attending the courses is very gratifying and I feel confident that it will be maintained.
The number of students in respect of whom grants were paid increased from 8,726 in the financial year 1961/2 to 10,700 in 1963/4, while the number of colleges providing courses in Irish increased from 20 in 1959 to 35 in 1964.
F.4—Grants to Periodicals published in Irish and Newspapers publishing current news in Irish: The additional provision under this subhead is required to enable a payment to be made to the Irish weekly Inniu to meet certain debts due to increased costs because of increases in salaries consequent on the 9th round and certain other increases in charges such as for postage and telephones. Inniu employs a relatively large professional and editorial staff and I am satisfied that this extra assistance being allowed is fully justified.
F.5—Irish Folklore Commission: The additional provision is required to meet the increased cost of salaries and wages consequent on the ninth round increases.
F.7 — Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge : The extra money being provided in the supplementary estimate is intended to meet increased charges for salary and office expenses, including salary increases due to the ninth round, as well as certain other increased costs arising for An Chomhdháil from its various activities. I am satisfied that this extra sum is required to enable it adequately to discharge its functions in the present financial year.
G.1—Royal Irish Academy : In this case also the increased provision is required to meet ninth round salary and wage increases.
G.4—Adult Education Courses: The additional sum of £800 is required for the purpose of a grant to the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology towards meeting a deficit in the Institute's running expenses in the year 1963/4. The Institute has for ten years been supplying adult education to an ever increasing number of students through courses ranging from Industrial Relations, Trade Unionism, Economics, Public Speaking to Social Science. In particular, it conducts two Diploma Courses: (a) A Diploma in Social Science—a three year course, and (b) A Diploma in Industrial Relations—a two year course.
In 1963/4 it had 1,181 students on its rolls and a weekly class attendance of 1,300.
The Institute explained, in connection with its application for aid from the Department of Education, that it had exhausted all possible sources of obtaining the revenue it needed to continue its work, that it had been operating on an overdraft for a long time and that the students' fees could not be further increased.
I am satisfied that the Institute is doing very useful work in the field of adult education and I consider that it should be supported in its efforts by the making of this financial grant to it.
G.8—Scientific Research Grants to Students: These grants are awarded on the recommendation of an advisory committee on which are representatives of the Department of Education and the Universities. A meeting of the committee is held each year in October or November to consider the applications received and to make recommendations in relation to the making of the awards and the operation of the scheme. Having regard to the fact of a significant increase in the number of highly qualified applicants in 1964 and to the recommendations of the advisory committee, I considered it was necessary to increase the original provision for these grants made in the Estimate for 1964/5. The extra provision allows for the making of a greater number of awards and for an increase in the value of some of the individual awards.
G.11—Expenses in connection with organised Educational Tours etc.: Educational courses and seminars, to which I attach considerable importance, have been organised in recent years for Irish teachers in the United States of America. The Department of Education made a grant of £1,500 towards the cost of the project for the first time in the financial year 1963/4 and a similar provision was made in the Estimate for 1964/5. Representations were subsequently made to me, however, that, because of certain organisational arrangements, the cost of the course to the Irish participants would be greater in 1964 than in 1963. On consideration of these representations I was satisfied that a grant of £3,000 was in all the circumstances called for. A supplementary provision of £1,500 under this subhead is, therefore, necessary.
G.13—Muintir na Tíre (Grant-in-Aid): Following publication by Muintir na Tíre of the document "A Plan for Community Development in Ireland," the organisation sought a Government grant to enable it to undertake the work envisaged in that plan. After full consideration of the matter it was decided to give for organisational purposes a subvention of about £5,000 for a few years, during which the organisation could strengthen itself and improve its membership and its finances, so that it could carry on without a grant thereafter.
H.—Deficiency in Appropriations in Aid: It had been anticipated that the final agreed instalment of £2,700 from OECD in respect of its share of the cost of the survey in relation to investment in education in this country might possibly have been received before 31st March, 1965. As, however, the survey has not yet been completed, payment of the final instalment will not have been received in the present financial year and this amount has now been credited instead to the estimate for 1965/6.
With regard to the following Supplementary Estimate for Secondary Education, the sum of £80,000 is the additional amount required in the current financial year to defray the cost of increased scales of incremental salary which are being introduced for secondary teachers with effect as from 1st November, 1964. The increased scales arise from an agreed recommendation of the Conciliation Council for these teachers.
Following the introduction of the new scales, the "standard salary" of a secondary teacher, that is, the incremental salary paid by the Department, plus the minimum of £200 per annum, called the "basic salary", paid by the school—ranges from £840 to £1,600 in the case of a married man and from £670 to £1,270 in the case of a woman or a single man. The special increment which is payable in addition to standard salary in the case of a teacher holding an honours degree or equivalent has been increased from £65 to £110 per annum.
This increased level of remuneration for secondary teachers has been authorised pursuant to the policy which was stated towards the end of 1963 and which indicated the Government's willingness to consider further status improvements for teachers to be achieved over a reasonable period.
On Vote 32, Vocational Education, the additional Estimate of £129,000 is, as Deputies will observe, divided over three subheads. The greatest amount is in respect of an increase in the annual grants to vocational education committees. The provision here arises from ninth round salary increases granted to teachers and other officers of vocational education committees. Committees' estimate of financial requirements for a particular financial year must be completed before 1st December of preceding year, and State grants to the committees are decided in relation to those estimates. The ninth round of salary increases, however, was sanctioned on 1st April, 1964, with effect from 1st February, 1964, and so it is now necessary to make payments to committees in excess of what was provided for in the original estimates. The State grant in this instance represents one-third of the additional cost falling on the vocational education committee as a result of this particular award.
The House is being asked, also, to agree to an increase of £300 in the grant-in-aid to Macra na Tuaithe, for which an amount of £4,000 was included in the original estimate for the current year. The grant is to assist Macra na Tuaithe in their educational work among the young people of the countryside, and the increase of £300 now sought arises from the additional costs in salary and administration attributable to the ninth round of salary increases.
The final item of £3,000 is on the subhead for examinations. The number of candidates at the various examinations held under the Technical Instruction Branch of my Department was rather substantially higher than had been expected when the original estimate was prepared, with a corresponding increase in the examiners' fees and in the cost of travelling and subsistence for those examiners who conduct oral and practical tests.
Vote 34, Universities and Colleges and Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, is required:
(a) to make provision for increases in salaries in accordance with the provisions of the ninth round for the staffs of the National University, and its Constituent Colleges, Dublin, Cork and Galway and for the staffs of Trinity College and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and
(b) to enable an increase to be made in the grant originally provided for the Dublin Dental Hospital.
The amount of the ninth round increase is that shown in the relevant subhead of the Supplementary Estimate except in the case of UCD and UCC. The actual cost of this increase in the case of UCD is £85,000 but this amount is offset to the extent of £60,000 saving in part (4) of the subhead due to the fact that because of the strike in the building trade last autumn progress in building operations at Belfield was not as great as anticipated. The estimated cost of the ninth round increase for the staff of UCC is £32,500. A saving of £9,000 on the estimated cost of the site works for the new science building reduces the over-all charge to the subhead to £23,500.
The additional amount for the Dublin Dental Hospital is mainly required for equipment and structural building alterations work, the cost of which could not be accurately estimated at the time of the preparation of the original estimate.
