On the question of superannuation generally, I have received representations from trade unions representing teachers who are particularly anxious that improved pension provisions would be introduced by way of amendment to the existing superannuation provisions to allow for early retirement by teachers obtaining a pension that would be pro rata to the contributions they made. This is a very useful and intelligent recommendation from the teaching unions in that such retirements would allow for the recruitment of young teachers. As we know well, there is a considerable problem of unemployment among well trained young Irish teachers who have recently been educated either in the national school training colleges or in universities, and these young teachers are having to work overseas in education and frequently outside education thereby not putting their talents, their education in the skills involved in teaching to good use here or elsewhere. That is a great waste. One way of creating opportunities for employment for such young teachers would be early retirement.
There is also a worry expressed by many in the teaching profession that because of the low level of recruitment of new young teachers into the profession in the last while, the age profile of the profession is rising. While it is extremely important in any school to have teachers with lengthy experience in education it is desirable also to have young teachers, to have a mix in the staff room and in the classroom. Both complement one another. The danger at the moment is that because of the restrictions on recruitment that have been introduced, for financial reasons that we all understand, and the worsening that has taken place in the pupil-teacher ratio, we see very few opportunities opening up for young teachers. The result is that it is possibly less easy for the Minister, or any Minister, to introduce innovations in that younger teachers recently out of training college are more likely to be receptive to innovations than people who have reached the stage of their lives where changes are not what they welcome. Unless we have an injection of new blood into the teaching profession to carry out the educational reforms which are necessary if this country is to keep pace with its competitors in the educational world of 1992, the world of free mobility of people and capital throughout Europe, these reforms will be more difficult to make than they ought to be.
For that reason I am hopeful that the Minister will be able to give an indication that she will improve the prospects for early retirement to allow more young teachers to be recruited. I acknowledge that there is another way of doing this, and from the point of view of all concerned, it would be a better way, namely, to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio. I am sure everybody in this House would ask the Minister to do this as soon as she can and would seek to influence the Government to have that done. I am anxious that this be done at primary school level where I am aware of classes of 40 or more being taught by one teacher in what is supposed to be a child centred curriculum. In addition there is a reasonable case to be made for the introduction of superannuation provisions to make early retirement more attractive.
Another matter in the field of superannuation that has been brought to my attention is job sharing in teaching. I have received representations from a number of teachers who are anxious to share their jobs. These would probably be married people with family responsibilities who wish to spend more time exercising those responsibilities and would be able to do so if they could share their job with another teacher in a similar situation. I understand the idea is that if teachers were working half time they would qualify for half the pension entitlement and their contributions would be adjusted pro rata. However, at the moment, I understand that within the superannuation scheme such arrangements are not possible. It would appear on the face of it at least not to involve any additional expenditure to introduce such an improvement. I hope the Minister will be able to deal with that in her reply. It is related to the subject matter of this Bill which is superannuation.
In the Teachers Superannuation Act, 1928, the word "teacher" includes a person who was a secondary teacher on 1 January 1927 and ceased to be such a teacher after that date before the passing of the Act. It also includes a person who was formerly a teacher and while he was a teacher was appointed to a pensionable post in the Civil Service, etc. The interesting thing is that that is not a definition of "teacher" at all. It tells you that "teacher" includes certain main categories but it does not tell you all of those who are composed in the definition of "teacher". I would like to ask a few questions about this because we should have a definition of "teacher" for the purpose of the Bill which we do not have. For instance, does this include staff who may be recruited as teachers' aides in special schools? Are they covered by superannuation? It appears they are working in the classroom, they are not qualified teachers in the conventional sense but it has been decided and is well established practice that teachers' aides are allowed to and do play a very useful role in special education.
If we move, as I think we will and as it is the policy of the Department of Education to move, towards integration of the handicapped into the ordinary classroom, for it to be possible for the class teacher to cope with the additional responsibility of having a child who has a learning disability in the ordinary class, a teacher's aid, as well as the teacher, may have to be appointed in the conventional classroom. I visited a primary school in Harrow, London, in the last few months to look at the way they coped with the integration of a handicapped child in the primary school. There was a class of around 25 pupils of whom one had a handicap, so in addition to the class teacher there was a special teachers' aide whose responsibility it was to look after the handicapped child but to join in any other activities as well to give some additional help to the teacher. If we are going to proceed with the integration of the handicapped in the ordinary class system, we are going to see much more of that sort of thing in this country.
Are such people covered by superannuation or will they need a separate superannuation scheme? If they are not covered would it not be sensible to use this legislation to insert a definition of "teacher" which would include such people, giving them the right to be covered by a superannuation scheme made under the legislation? It might not be the same superannuation scheme because a variety of schemes are made under this, not all being the same, but at least it would enable them to be covered for superannuation if they are not already covered for it. I ask the Minister to refer to that possibility and the possibility of having a definition of "teacher" which encompasses all those who work in the classroom whether in special schools or otherwise.
Another question I would like to raise concerns the transferability of pension entitlements. The principal Act makes it clear from the quotation I have already given that it is possible to transfer pension entitlements from the teaching profession into the Civil Service and that is obviously very necessary from the point of view of the recruitment of inspectors from the teaching body. However, there is no reference in the principal Act to transferability into other parts of the State sector. As the Minister is aware, an extensive scheme of transferability of pensions rights for semi-State bodies has been evolved and to the best of my knowledge most of the State companies have become members of this transfer scheme. Somebody moving from the ESB to Bord na Móna take their pension rights with them. I think there are one or two exceptions to this rule. One or two bodies have not for some reason subscribed to the scheme. Do the schemes made under the Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1928, involve transferability to these schemes in the scheme of transfer I have referred to in the wider public service? Is it possible for teachers to move to a private company have a pension scheme and to transfer their pension rights into the private scheme? Can their rights be converted from being rights under a public service scheme into pension rights approved for tax purposes by the Revenue Commissioners in the private sector?
It is not correct to say that because these are private sector schemes the Minister has nothing to do with them. To qualify for tax relief for pension contributions they have to be approved by the Revenue Commissioners, which means the Minister for Finance has control over what private schemes are recognised and what are not. If the Minister wished to insert transferability as between the private sector scheme and this scheme, her colleague, the Minister for Finance, has the power to do that. It is desirable that teachers be able to carry their pension rights into private employment. For example, some teachers, especially commerce teachers, who wish to go out into business to work in a company should be encouraged to do that by pension transferability. Equally that should apply in the opposite direction, and people who have the relevant qualifications who have been working in pensionable private employment should be encouraged to transfer into teaching. One way of allowing that to happen would be through a scheme of transferability. Does such apply here?
The Minister's speech, a very truthful speech, reveals quite an appalling situation in terms of the accountability of the Department of Education to the Oireachtas. The Minister, to her credit, made no effort whatever to gloss over this or to conceal it, and I compliment her for that. Under the law, as it stands, a superannuation scheme may not be revoked or amended other than by means of an order approved by the Dáil. However, the Minister said that the superannuation scheme for teachers had been extensively revoked and amended during the seventies and eighties and that it had never come before the Dáil. She admitted — again to her credit — that her Department, even for their own purposes, have not drafted the alternative amendments, let alone introduced them in the Dáil. The Department have been operating a new system of superannuation without statutory authority.