I am very grateful to you for deciding on the urgency of this matter. I raise this matter because, as we come to the end of this Daíil session, we will have very few opportunities of reviewing what I believe to be some disastrous consequences in relation to a section of the teaching profession which is already very vulnerable. I am referring in particular to part-time teachers in the vocational sector. I want to be as economical as I can in the time allocated to me. What I want from the Minister are a number of assurances and I want to express my concern about some fundamental accountability in policy matters in relation to education.
I raised this matter during this session because many of the part time teachers involved will have their contracts terminated in September. It is expected that the House will adjourn very shortly, next Friday. It is not clear exactly when it will resume, but it will certainly be later than the date on which the part-time teachers' contracts terminate. The position is that they will have lost their jobs before we meet here again and before the Minister and I, as spokesperson for the Labour Party on Education, have an opportunity to address this problem.
You ruled on a number of questions I submitted by way of Private Notice Questions, and I accept your ruling that this is a matter to which we might have adverted in the budget debate or even in the Estimates, but the fact is that last year the current Minister very courageously challenged an aspect of our accountability in relation to educational expenditure. Then the spokesperson for Education in Opposition, she said she felt the allocations to the vocational education committees should be made available in time for them to make decisions in relation to hiring staff. She made another point at that time for which I commend her. She said she felt it to be an absurdity that elected representatives of Dáil Éireann would not be able to find out what were the allocations to the vocational education committees. I agree with what her sentiments were then. It is highly improper that I as an elected representative and spokesperson for Education of a party, dealing with people who are my constituents — teachers and children — find myself in the position of not knowing what allocation has been given to particular vocational education committees. This is not answered by saying this is an exercise in local democracy, sending out the allocations to the vocational education committees at some stage and then saying that the vocational education committees can be expected to exercise their mandate very properly. Let us not judge the merits of the vocational education committees because that is not the matter on the Adjournment.
I am worried about the deafening silence from the vocational education committees around the country, knowing they will hand on to chief executive officers in individual institutions the job of deciding which part time teachers will be let go and which part time teachers will be retained. I discussed this matter today with the teachers from one regional technical college in which there are 17 temporary whole time teachers and eight full time equivalents made up of part time teachers. They said that having gone to the head of the institution involved he could not tell them which of them he will choose to keep and which he will choose to let go. Not only am I excluded from this process but these teachers and their trade unions are excluded from this process, and in employment terms, as far as the part time teachers are concerned this is making a hangman of the chief executive officer. That is what is involved, no more and no less, and I am worried about it.
Part time teachers have a sufficient degree of disadvantage at present. They often arrive at institutions without specific provisions being made for rooms for them. There are practical difficulties about their access to basic equipment and the availability of such special equipment as speedy access to photostating and so forth as they might require. They have no security of tenure which is psychologically damaging, but perhaps that need not concern us this evening. In relation to those who are losing, and who will lose, their jobs, they now have the disadvantage of the recently introduced requirement of nine months social insurance stamps for qualification for unemployment benefit. This means that some of them will be forced to depend on unemployment assistance. Such temporary teachers have no regular payments if they get sick. The qualification certificate required for disability benefit makes it very unlikely that a part time teacher could get recompense. Already these people suffer a great deal of disability, but now many of them stand in danger of losing their jobs altogether. This will be devastating for them.
In trying to raise this matter before the Dáil recess, I submitted a number of Dáil questions. I submitted Question No. 177 for written answer on Tuesday, 23 June 1987. I asked the Minister for Education the number of whole time teaching equivalents allocated to each vocational education committee in the years 1986 and 1987 in respect of teachers on the common basic scale. In reply the Minister said that it would not be in accordance with normal practice to supply the information sought in respect of each vocational education committee. This is the very reply she objected to when in Opposition. I had hoped that the practice which had excluded Deputy O'Rourke from information in relation to the vocational sector when in Opposition would have ended when she became Minister for Education and that I could expect not to be excluded from the information which she so ardently sought — and indeed which would have had my support — if I had been a Member of the House at the time because I believe in such parliamentary accountability.
In Question No. 178 put down for written answer on Tuesday, 23 June 1987 I asked the Minister for Education to state the amount of money allocated to each vocational education committee in respect of discretionary pay and committed non-pay. I was informed that resources are allocated to vocational education committees on a calenadar year basis, not on the basis of the academic year and that the information in relation to the 1988 calendar year will only become available when the Government have completed their deliberations and taken decisions on the 1988 Estimate. The reply went on to say that information relating to the financial year ending 31 December 1987 is given in the form of a tabular statement which was to be circulated in the Official Report. I have not yet received that statement and, therefore, I still do not have the information. I have sought specific information in a number of written replies and I know why I have not received such information.
In Questions Nos. 180 and 1811 asked a specific question in relation to the architectural courses in Bolton Street College of Technology and if they could operate efficiently given that part-time and temporary whole-time staff had been advised they would not be replaced. The Minister correctly took up one point in the question which was not strictly accurate at the time, that teachers had not yet been told they would not be re-employed. Good luck to the Minister for seizing that straw. However, the course to which I referred in Bolton Street depends on part-time, professional staff who cannot be hired within the restrictions of the allocations made to the college.
I also asked a related question as to whether the teachers in the regional technical colleges are financing their own salary increases in view of the fact that the allocation of moneys for pay in 1987 has been cut by I per cent this year and that it is proposed to cut them by 3 per cent in 1988. The reply attempted to shelter under the skirts of the VEC because it was that the implications for the regional technical college and the Government's budget statement in relation to staffing the public service had been the subject of discusssions between the Department of Education and the Department of Finance. It went on to say that following these discussions the Department issued circular letter No. 45/87 to the vocational education committees concerning this matter. It also said that responsibility — and this is the nub of the matter — for the introduction of specific measures in order to comply with the terms of the circular letter rests with the college authorities and the vocational education committees concerned. The reply also stated that the Minister had no reason to believe that essential activities in the colleges in question would be curtailed by the application of the Government's decision. I have referred to all these questions to indicate the repeated efforts I made to get the necessary information to answer the question addressed to me as spokesman on Education for the Labour Party.
The Minister also informed me that, in the case of the architectural courses in the College of Technology, Bolton Street, she was not aware that any formal advice of the kind indicated by the Deputy had been issued. It is like saying "I have not read the news of your death yet". The Minister said in one reply that she had no reason to believe that essential activities in the college in question would be curtailed by the application of the Government's decision. What does she mean by "essential activities"? Has she circulated to the colleges concerned a list of essential activities? The Minister set up an epistemological investigation of considerable effort when she used the term "peripheral activities" in Bundoran. I presume, therefore, following my good training in logic that there are essential activities and peripheral activities. What is the distinction? This was part of the trail of unanswered questions after the debate on the Education Estimate, for instance, on related matters, particularly services. If there is such a threat to part-time teaching, how then can the courses be advertised and offered to the public? What is the position of existing courses which have just commenced, those which are half way through to which commitment has been made and those which will terminate shortly? The Minister said publicly that anyone who started a course could feel reasonably sure they will finish it. What about the question that arises every summer when the different education authorities advertise courses on a whole series of subjects for adults within the general rubric of education for women, specialist groups and so on? Are those courses peripheral or essential? No doubt the answer will be that it is a matter for each individual VEC to make a decision as to what is essential and — to use the Minister's new word in the vocabulary of education — peripheral. The kind of people who have been worried about the distinction between existential and peripheral are not etymologists, they have been the beneficiaries of courses run by the vocational sector and include those depending on courses provided in prisons and by the National Council for Travelling People who have offered a number of courses. There are 2,000 traveller children between the ages of 12 and 15. Only 10 per cent can be persuaded to go on to second level education and only 2 per cent stay for more than a year or two. Yet we are told that the VECs involvement in the training centre programmes and the different junior programmes cannot be assured because the VEC cannot say that such programmes will continue. This even means that the programmes for prisoners — often victims of multiple deprivation — will not continue. There is a whole mix of courses which could qualify under the general heading of adult education.
We know that the pathetic sum of £500,000 out of £1.26 billion has been cut by £100,000. Will any courses relating to community and adult education in which the vocational sector are involved continue? To use the new logic of the era in which we live, they will find a way. That phrase is spreading like a cancer throughout the educational system in a number of schools at different levels. It really means that they will gather contributions to make up the gap in the State provision. Mrs. Thatcher marched down that road when she wanted to disestablish State education in Britain and to go back to private education to reproduce a privileged and class ridden elitist society. It is not very republican to be going back to the idea of reliance on private contributions to make up for State cuts, particularly when they affect the underprivileged and those most removed from the educational system. Perhaps "they will find a way" does not extend only to the kind of contributions which might supplement matters. Perhaps people will suggest that there can be a clawback from teachers' pay, increases which they would have normally got and which were negotiated through different public agreements——
