Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 3 Feb 1981

Vol. 326 No. 4

Financial Resolutions, 1981. - Adjournment Debate: Review Body on Teachers' Pay.

Mr. E. Collins

I wish to thank the Ceann Comhairle and the Minister for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter. The question of the establishment of a review body on teachers' pay was a very pressing one early in 1980. The teachers' unions were, rightly, pressing for substantial increases in salary and other allowances. Because of public pressure on the Minister by the teachers' unions and by Members of the House, the Minister on 27 March 1980, made an announcement that Judge Patrick Noel Ryan, a Circuit Court judge, had agreed to act as chairman of a review body. That review body consisted of the chairman, Mr. John Walsh and Mr. Michael Collins, both members of the Labour Court, Mr. Richard Cooke, S.C., and Dr. Dermot McAleese, Trinity College. Their terms of reference were set out in a statement issued by the Minister on 27 March:

A—(1) To examine and report on the levels of salary and allowances of teachers on the common basic scale taking cognisance of the circumstances of other groups with comparable professional qualifications and responsibilities;

(2) To have regard in the overall assessment of salary levels, allowances and promotion opportunities to the nature and conditions of their work including hours of work and length of school year, and the role and value of the teacher in society;

(3) To make an interim report by 30 September 1980;

(4) To submit the final report and recommendations by 31 January 1981.

B— To make recommendations in regard to the procedure for the determination and review of the conditions on which persons may be appointed in various vapacities for work in connection with the Certificate Examinations of the Department of Education, including the rates of payment for such work.

Those terms of reference were wide enough to allow the review body to take into account the whole professional status of the teacher and his or her role in society. It is interesting to note the position now is that over 75 per cent of students in St. Patrick's College of Education in Drumcondra are female.

Mr. Wilson

It is much more than that.

Mr. E. Collins

I said in excess, perhaps over eighty per cent are females, which may indicate that men do not see the teaching profession as one which gives a high income, high promotional opportunities or as giving the necessary status they would like to have as husbands as well as teachers——

Mr. Wilson

Sexism.

Mr. E. Collins

——and perhaps the main bread winners in the families.

Mr. Wilson

Sexism.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Collins without interruption, please.

Mr. E. Collins

I am merely indicating a particular social development which is interesting to note and indicative of the fact that teachers' pay has not been as high as I would like to have seen it.

The interim report was recommended on 22 September 1980. It proposed certain salary increases and so on. These salary increases were strongly rejected by the teachers' unions and, as a result of the conciliation and arbitration scheme, substantial amendments were made to the recommendations in the interim report. The main changes were in regard to the amount of the increase in teachers' pay, an agreement on the shortening of the time spread over which a teacher would reach the maximum on the scale and the retention of B posts of responsibility. I agree with what the Minister did in relation to the salary increases, the retention of the B posts and the shortening of the length of time it took a teacher to reach the maximum on the scale. There were several improvements which the Minister correctly made. The Minister, on other issues, totally ignored the recommendations of the review body. I will quote from paragraph 2.6:

The salary we recommend will, we believe, correct those inadequacies but we would emphasise that the salary so recommended is justifiable only if it is overtly recognised that supervision, substitution, parent contact and pastoral care are integral parts of the teaching function and essential to the proper running of a school. The response we would wish to see generated from the teachers is that these requirements will be met by them generously in the part they play in the moulding and development of their pupils.

The ignoring by the Minister of that central recommendation is the reason why the review body submitted their resignation to the Minister on 30 October 1980. Why has the Minister not initiated negotiations with the reachers' unions on these vital matters which affect parents, teachers and children? From the point of view of improving our system of education, it was essential that the Minister should at least initiate negotiations on these matters of supervision, substitution, parent contact and pastoral care. There are many parents who would like to have seen some move forward on these fronts. It is obvious that the Minister has not made any attempt to open negotiations on these matters.

There is another matter stated in paragraph 2.6:

From the evidence presented to us we are concerned that the quality of school service is not being fully maintained at present.

If that is not a serious indictment of the Minister for Education then I am a Dutchman. For an impartial review body, chaired by a judge of the Circuit Court, to indict the Minister for failing to ensure that the quality of our school services is maintained, is one of the most serious indictments I have heard from an independent authority since I was elected. Would the Minister make some statement on that aspect of the interim report? They stated again, quite clearly in paragraph 2.6:

We believe that our salary proposals recognise the value and inherent worth of the profession and we feel it our duty to state that the prerequisite of any such contracts should be the meeting in full of school requirements of teaching, caring and management.

The review body submitted their resignation on 30 October 1980 setting out their reasons for that action. I do not agree with them on one or two points but the fact that they decided to resign is a serious matter. It is the first time since I became a Member of this House that an independent investigating body resigned because their recommendations were ignored. It is sad to think that when the Minister received that letter of resignation he did not do anything about it.

In the course of their statement on 8 January the review body stated that at the time of their letter of resignation of 30 October the ballot on the Minister's proposals had not been completed and for that reason, in deference to the Minister's wishes, they delayed making public their decision. It appears from that statement that the Minister made some request to the review body not to resign but I do not think he made any effort to meet the recommendations of the review body because on 11 December they wrote to the Minister, since no communication had been received from him in the interim, indicating their intention to issue a press release on 2 January 1981. Apparently, the Minister's private secretary asked for a delay in the publishing of the resignation and in the first week of 1981 the Minister, in the course of a letter to the review body, expressed his gratitude to them for accepting the onerous duty and so on.

The point I am making — I want this clearly taken and not misinterpreted — is that it is very difficult for one man to put a value on another man's labour. In a society which has been suffering from serious inflation for the past ten years I have seen the revaluing of peoples' incomes in different sectors of the economy changing drastically. It was because of the ravages of inflation that the tremendous pressure built up within the teachers' unions for very high increases. The Irish Times of 9 April 1980 reported that vocational teachers were to push for a 50 per cent pay claim. They were the type of figures spoken of early that year. It was because of many years of neglect that the teachers rightly sought radical increases in their pay. The recommendation was not acceptable to them and it subsequently went, on the Minister's initiative, to conciliation and arbitration where a higher figure was agreed on. I welcome the agreement reached at that time. Some aspects of the recommendations were not to my liking such as the length of time it took teachers to reach the maximum, the retention of the B posts and the overall increases suggested. I felt those increases could be improved on. The figures agreed by the Minister and the teachers' unions were to my satisfaction and I stated publicly that I welcomed the agreement.

However, I was disappointed that in other vital areas the Minister was extremely neglectful in that he chose to ignore what must be considered to be important aspects of the teaching profession. I look forward to the time when such matters as supervision, substitution, parent contact and pastoral care would be integral parts of the school system. I look forward to the time when the income of teachers will be such as to include all those aspects of professional status. If that happens we will not have the annual wrangle about fees to be paid for supervision of examinations or the correcting of examination papers. We should have an automatic way forward.

The Minister has missed an ideal opportunity to deal with such matters by not taking up the recommendations of the review body. By ignoring what can only be considered as the pleadings of the review body on 30 October and 11 December the Minister has deprived the teaching profession of further increases in salary. He has deprived them of a final report which would have dealt in a comprehensive way with the professional status, with their place in the examination system and with other matters the review body cared to address themselves to. By his own negligence and omission the Minister has denied teachers a further increase in salary and has denied children and parents a clear recommendation on the path our educational system should take in the eighties in such vital areas as pastoral care, supervision and so on. As a result we are left in a vacuum. We are missing something and teachers are missing out on a further increase in salary.

I looked forward, as Opposition spokesman on Education, and as a parent, to the final report of the review body. However, because of the Minister's incompetence, neglect and omission in dealing with the recommendations in the interim report a serious disservice has been done to Irish education. A wider implication is that in future it may be difficult to get independent people of standing to serve on Government committees or Government-sponsored review bodies. Why should they if their major recommendations are to be ignored? Even when they take the trouble to communicate with the Minister and point out certain matters which are not to their liking their serious submissions are ignored. The final report of the review body could have played a vital role in improving the relations between the teachers' unions, parents and the Department of Education. It could have helped in some way to improve our school system, something which would be to the benefit of all children.

Minister for Education (Mr. Wilson)

Deputy Collins has performed a circus act of trying to ride two horses at the same time. He should face up to the question of whether he agreed with what the review body recommended or the teachers with regard to salaries. Does he agree with the range of the salaries, the scale which was recommended? If he does agree with the range then he agrees with what the Minister for Education did in this regard.

He came out with what to me is the most extraordinary statement about the composition of the teaching profession. He said something to the effect that there was a 75 per cent women intake in St. Patrick's College of Education in Drumcondra because, he felt, men did not see the profession as one which would enable them to marry and raise a family. I was not quite sure whether I was hearing aright. I thought that this blatant sexism had departed from our social life, but here comes Deputy Collins, knotted club in his right hand and dragging a female with his left out of his cave as he says, "This person here thinks that she should have a place in the teaching profession but it is not good enough for me because I am a male". The fact is that the majority of trainees are women because they beat the blue socks off the men at the examinations and interviews. It is as simple and blunt as that and has nothing to do with the fantasy which we had from Deputy Collins.

I have in this House put it on the record that I rejected the vitriolic attacks made on the review body for the sake of the review body themselves but also because we had here a group of highly competent professional people who were providing services voluntarily for the State and who produced a good report. I am glad to take the opportunity again to pay tribute to the review body for their approach to the task. It was a thorough approach and an expeditious one. They reported very quickly and painstakingly and their report was imaginative and far-reaching in its recommendations. The recommendations were for a salary structure which would "be such as to attract and hold persons of quality and dedication which the profession needs and the public desires".

Some aspects of the report from the review body are still being considered through the teachers' conciliation and arbitration scheme. However, I consider that it would be in order for me to make the following observations. The proposals put before the teachers' conciliation council for the purpose of an agreed recommendation did not depart fundamentally from the proposals of the review body. It was agreed that the span of the long-phased increments should be reduced substantially from 23 to 11 years, but, on the other hand, the length of the normal scale was to remain at 15 points instead of 13 as recommended in the report of the review body. The minimum of the revised scale was fixed at £5,300 instead of the recommended £5.050, but the amounts of the increments over most of the scale were precisely as recommended in the report, and the maximum to be reached by way of the long-phased increments was fixed at the level recommended by the review body.

All proposals in relation to salary adjustments for teachers are processed, as the House well knows, through the conciliation and arbitration machinery and the arrangements for the processing of the proposals through the conciliation council were no different in this case from the arrangements for processing the proposals on pay under the national understanding and previous national agreement on pay. Agreement on a recommendation at the conciliation council requires the agreement of all the parties constituting the council.

Agreed Report No. 4/80 of the conciliation council records the agreement of the council to recommend the implemtation of proposals in relation to the revised basic scale of salary for teachers which had been negotiated at meetings between representatives of the teachers' unions, the managerial authorities and the Departments of Education and of the Public Service, chaired by the Minister for Education.

Agreed Report 4/80 also records that: (a) the official side said that they were prepared to offer the revised scale on condition that it must be regarded as fully comprehensive and inclusive, that is that no additional payment would arise in any circumstances in respect of any functions discharged by teachers as part of the duties of their posts in individual schools; (b) the teachers' side said that if employers wished teachers to undertake additional functions which do not form part of the teacher's contractual duties the teachers' unions might present claims for allowances for those teachers who were prepared to undertake such functions.

The report 4/80 does not record any statement from the representatives of the other parties constituting the conciliation council in relation to the discharge of functions by teachers.

The functions to be discharged by teachers, other than teaching functions, may vary in accordance with the circumstances of individual schools and of different categories of schools and it is my view that, to the extent that such may be necessary, they would be set out in the contract between the school authorities and the teachers concerned.

I am aware that negotiations have been taking place over a period between representatives of the managerial association, for example, of secondary schools and the teachers in those schools in relation to the contractual duties of the teachers, but I, as Minister for Education, have not been a party to such negotiations.

The duties attaching to posts of responsibility in secondary schools are set out in a memorandum agreed between the joint managerial body and the ASTI. Again, of course, the Minister for Education is not a party to this agreed memorandum.

I am satisfied that matters which are regarded by the school authorities as essential functions of individual teachers in the running of the school should form part of the contractual duties of such teachers and should be specified as appropriate and to the extent considered necessary in the contract of employment. It is a matter for the school authorities concerned to make such arrangements accordingly.

I have informed the chairman of the review body that I understand fully the view which he expressed to me during the course of a meeting which the members had with me in October last that they would not consider it appropriate to invite submissions in regard to the outstanding item in the terms of reference as set out originally, namely to make recommendations in regard to the procedure for the determination and review of the conditions on which persons may be appointed in various capacities for work in connection with the certificate examinations of the Department of Education including rates of payment for such work. I stated that it seems to me that this matter might be satisfactorily considered through the official procedures available for the purpose.

I would like to tell the House that my action as Minister for Education is justified fully in the circumstances and that the review body have left a lasting imprint on the format of the salary structure in this country and I am grateful to them for it.

Mr. E. Collins

Would the Minister explain now why the members felt that they had to resign?

The Dáil adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 4 February 1981.