I move:—
That the National School Teachers' Superannuation (Amendment) Scheme, 1940, made by the Minister for Education with the consent of the Minister for Finance under the Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1928 (No. 32 of 1928) be confirmed.
National School Teachers' Superannuation (Amendment) Scheme, 1940—Motion.
I think I should explain, for the members of the Seanad, that this amending scheme is promoted to give pension rights to a small number of national school teachers, probably not exceeding three in number, in respect of periods of not less than seven years, during which they served as teachers in Irish-speaking fosterage schools or in special secondary schools for the fostering of the Irish language. It also allows of the inclusion of periods of service as Gaelic League organiser and approved service as secondary school teachers for pension purposes in the case of those teachers. Such service under this amended scheme may, however, be reckoned for pension only if the teacher pays the amount of contributions he would have paid had he served in a national school for the period in question.
The Secondary Teachers' Pension Scheme of 1929 permits of previous service given as a national school teacher being counted for pension purposes in the case of secondary teachers and that scheme in conjunction with the incremental salary rules permits of periods of service of not less than five years as Gaelic League organiser, being similarly included. There is, however, no provision in the National Teachers' Scheme for a reciprocal arrangement in respect of secondary school service, nor is it proposed to adopt any such general arrangement.
The cases of the small number of teachers to whom this amending scheme will apply are deserving of special consideration in view of the essentially national character of their work in fostering the Irish language and culture under difficult circumstances and at considerable personal financial loss.
The other amendments in the scheme are largely of a technical character and some of them are introduced to clarify certain provisions of the original scheme.
Paragraph 6 is introduced to preclude a period of service being reckoned both for a teacher's pension and a military pension. A similar provision was made in the Gárda Síochána Pensions (No. 2) Order, 1938.
Paragraph 7 meets a technical difficulty which had arisen in certain cases of ex-national teachers who died after retirement and before making application for the pension to which they would have been entitled had such application been made.
Paragraph 8 proposes to delete the word "efficiently," which found its way into paragraph 11 (b) (ii) of the 1934 scheme owing to oversight. It opens up the possibility of a teacher about to be dismissed without pension, for non-efficiency, claiming a pension on the ground that his non-efficiency was due to some physical defect such as would not ordinarily be regarded as sufficiently serious to warrant the award of a disability pension.
The Department of Education must be satisfied that the teacher was not able to carry out his work efficiently. It was never intended that the word "efficiently" should be there. The position is that the Department of Education must be satisfied that the teacher is not able to carry out his duty, and it stops at that.
Paragraph 9. This amendment qualifies the phrase "claimant for a pension" in order to limit the benefit to cases in which there would have been entitlement to pension but for failure to give notice of the claim within the prescribed period.
Paragraph 10. It happens occasionally that after a teacher has gone on pension it is discovered that there has been an overpayment of salary or other grants to him. Similar provision was made in paragraph 31 (2) of the Secondary Teachers' Scheme, 1929.
Paragraph 11. The provision in paragraph 31 of the 1934 scheme led to the embarrassing position that a teacher who, either through inadvertence or wilfully, stays on in school without the permission of the Minister, has either to be paid salary for the excess period or to suffer the drastic penalty of loss of pension.
On a particular day, according to our legal adviser, the guillotine fell, and if a teacher did not draw his pension from that date legal difficulties would supervene. The Minister had no discretion in the matter, but it is now proposed to give the Minister discretion to refuse to pay salary to the teacher if, for example, he or she is staying on in the school after he or she has received due notice from the Department of Education that the employment has terminated, in which case I would not propose to continue to pay salary to the teacher but, nevertheless, I would have a discretion in the matter which I have not now. Through the exercise of this discretion, it is hoped to avoid legal difficulties which might arise in connection with the date from which teachers' pensions operate in such cases.
Paragraph 12. The 1934 scheme (paragraph 7) dealt with the case of a national teacher who resigned from the service and was subsequently reappointed. If such teacher had been repaid his premiums it was necessary for him to refund the amount with interest in order to have his previous period of service reckoned for pension. The Secondary Teachers' Scheme of 1929 provided for previous service as a national teacher being reckoned for pension as a secondary teacher on the transfer of his premiums from the National Teachers' Fund to the Secondary Teachers' Fund. No provision was made, however, for the case of a teacher who first served as a national teacher, then as a secondary teacher and later reverted to the status of national teacher. This new paragraph provides for the payment to the Minister of the premiums in respect of the earlier period of national teacher service as a condition for the inclusion of that period in the teacher's pensionable service and indicates the procedure to be adopted by the teacher.
Generally speaking, the amendments are of a technical character, except with regard to paragraph 5, which is the operative one, and which has been introduced to cover the cases of three teachers, one of them a national school teacher and two others who were secondary teachers before they became national school teachers. All three have carried out special work over a long period in connection with fosterage schools or special secondary schools for the development of the Irish language. In one case, in the case of the national teacher, that teacher has had service as a Gaelic League organiser. We have considered it necessary, in view of the special services of these people, and the fact that they have undergone a certain amount of personal loss in connection with their work for the language, to bring them under the scheme by this special amendment.
I welcome this order. I think it is only fair and just and there should be nothing controversial about it. I should like to know if any representations have been made on behalf of a class of teachers not covered here—namely, teachers who have retired after a long period of service in monastery or convent schools. There are not many of these teachers left now. Some few years ago there were about 60 alive in the State. Many of them have passed away since, some in extreme poverty. Some who survive are living on the charity of friends. I wonder if any representations have been made to the Minister in regard to these teachers? Since pensions are now being provided for certain classes, and since discretionary powers seem to have been exercised by the Minister in these cases, I think he might well note some of those other cases to which I have referred, if any of these people are still living. They were not, of course, legally entitled to pensions as they did not contribute to a pension fund, but like other teachers, whom the Minister mentioned, many of them were enthusiastic teachers of Irish in their younger days. As a matter of fact they were largely responsible for the teaching of Irish in the convents and monastery schools. When they were retired they had no legal claim to pensions, but I think in a State such as ours which favours a social Christian policy, they have a strong moral claim. I think the Minister might well look into the matter and consider the desirability of giving pensions to such of those persons as are still living. The burden on the State will not be very much. Some of them may be living on home assistance at present. I cannot say for a fact that they are, but I could easily find that out for the Minister if he would consent to consider their case. I think it would be only sheer social justice to do so.
I should like to ask the Minister whether this scheme covers the case of teachers employed in industrial schools?
No.
Or in technical institutes?
It covers only those who are serving at present as national teachers.
I do not quite understand the purport of the order. I presume that it is intended largely to implement some sort of agreement come to when representations on certain points were made to the Minister, but I should like to hear why some categories of teachers were included as beneficiaries whilst others were excluded. Personally, I do not see why a case should be made for giving pensions from the State to the employees of a voluntary independent private corporation like the Gaelic League. I do not think it right to assume that merely because the question of the Irish language is involved, that should cover an indefinite multitude of sins. The man who is teaching the Irish language may be doing well or ill. He may be doing a greater national service than other people, but that is a matter of argument. Practically anybody who is teaching anything, anybody who is engaged in trying to improve the moral or intellectual condition of the people, is doing a national service and is contributing to the national revival, but here the vehicle of the language is going to be selected so that anybody employed by a private organisation will have an automatic claim on the public purse. Why should the pension not be paid by the organisation who employed these people for its own purposes?
I was rather disappointed with the Minister's statement. As I understand the matter, representations as to the claims of these various categories were made to the Government. The Government recognised the justice of those claims and incorporated a whole number of them in the order here. For instance, Senator Mrs. Concannon asked whether people employed in industrial schools were included. I presume there is an equitable reason why they should not be included, but why then is an organiser for the Gaelic League included? I think that the people whom I mentioned, those employed in technical institutes, have even a stronger claim. They are employed by a local government body and the very fact that they are employed by a public body to do public work does seem to me to suggest that they have a greater claim than some of the people dealt with here. It may be, of course, that these people draw pensions from public bodies. If the Minister had stated what representations were made to him and that these proposals were intended to meet the case made in these representations, we should then have been able to see why A is a beneficiary and why B is not. I should like to know why teachers in technical institutes are excluded while Gaelic League organisers are included?
I think Senator Fitzgerald is not quite clear as to the intention of this particular order. It is an order made under the Teachers Superannuation Act, 1928. It concerns people who are at the moment or who have been national teachers and who, in the ordinary way, as such, are entitled to pensions. With regard to the recognition of certain types of service, which was not service for the purpose of previous orders under the Superannuation Acts mention has been made of the Gaelic League. I hope Senator Fitzgerald does not think that the Minister is bringing in an order to give pensions to Gaelic League teachers because he is not, although a case could be made for a certain number of people who at a particular period, in bad weather, in bad times, for bad pay, and when they were often in bad health, did work which would be very deserving perhaps, of recognition now by the State. That particular case, I think, stands on a different footing from the case mentioned by the Minister and with which he is dealing in this order. Three particular cases have been mentioned. I happen to know one of them. They are cases of people who are national teachers and who had long service as national teachers, who served in a school doing work identical with the work which it is now considered good work to do in the national interest and which it is now the national policy to do. The Minister is simply recognising their service in that particular institution as if it were service in a national school under the British régime or subsequent to 1922. Considering that there are only three persons involved, I think that that must be regarded as a reasonable proceeding. I think it might have been done at an earlier period when a particular order was being framed. However, it is a good thing that it is being done now.
With regard to other types of teachers, I have been familiar for a long time with the case made by Senator Cummins and I have a great deal of sympathy with it. The question of industrial teachers has also been referred to, but I do not think that they could be dealt with under this particular order. This order is not, whatever some people may say, an order for giving pensions to people who taught under private corporations. To describe those who, for nothing or for very little, taught for the Gaelic League in the old days as the teachers of a private corporation is somewhat extravagant. The word "corporation" suggests to me a magnificent building, leather chairs, high salaries and well-paid officials, and that picture is very awry from what the Gaelic League was before it fell into its present state of degeneracy.
Senator Hayes has explained the position very clearly. This is not a Bill to provide pensions for Gaelic League organisers. It merely extends to national teachers a certain facility which had already been given to Gaelic League organisers who became secondary teachers under the existing Secondary Teachers' Superannuation Scheme. Although the schemes for different types of teachers need not necessarily be uniform in every respect, Senators will recognise that if a certain concession is granted to secondary teachers under the existing scheme there seems to be a good reason for giving the same concession to national teachers under their particular scheme. In the cases of two teachers there has been constant service over a long period of time. One of them has been serving as a national school teacher since 1926, and another since the same period. Previous to that, in two cases there has been service as secondary teachers for ten years and 16 years, I think, respectively, so that there was a long period of service as secondary teachers in two of these cases before the teachers took up national school work. In the third case there was a break over a period of years during which the teacher gave up his work as a national teacher in an ordinary national school to carry out similar work, but not as a national teacher, as head of a fosterage school, and we are simply giving him credit for that work over a period of years. Therefore, as the Senator has pointed out, we are not giving the concession to Gaelic League organisers as such, but, where Gaelic League organisers were doing teaching work over a period of years and then came into the service as national or secondary teachers, provided they pay up their premiums for that period we are certainly giving them an advantage to the extent that we are giving them these added years of service they had under the Gaelic League.
The industrial school and vocational school teachers are in a different category. Vocational officers are officials of the local authority and I think their pensions are granted in the usual way under the Local Authorities Acts. As regards the industrial schools, we had hoped to have been able to deal with the whole position of the industrial school teachers in literary subjects who are able to satisfy the inspectors and give them the same status as national school teachers, but there was a fairly substantial sum of money involved and we found, owing to the present circumstances, that it was impossible to implement our promise. We hope, however, as soon as circumstances improve, to deal with that particular situation as one of the very first matters requiring attention. I hope that it is quite clear then that the scheme which I recommend to the House is merely for the purpose of bringing in three teachers who are in a very special category and that, in fact, we are not giving them a very great concession, except in one case where we are giving the service as a Gaelic League organiser when we know that the individual was in fact doing teaching work similar to work done in a number of ordinary national schools during a period when he was called a Gaelic League organiser. We have to be very careful in this amendment of the pensions scheme and our finance authorities will naturally, in any amendment that may take place, look to it that large numbers of persons are not unwittingly brought under the scheme.
It would be a pleasure for me to extend the scheme to other people who, unfortunately, as Senator Cummins points out, are not entitled to get pensions at present. When this scheme was originally brought in in 1934 we went into the cases of all those teachers who had been hitherto excluded from pensions and we brought in as many of them as possible. But, no matter how large the formula you agree upon, when you try to deal with a matter retrospectively, you will always be confronted with fresh demands to go back two years, three years, four years, and to try to cover the cases of people who actually have left the service. We were not able to do that. We had to come to the decision that we could only deal with the people who were in the service then, in 1934, and we could not go back further.
As regards a certain class called untrained lay assistants in convent and monastery schools, I am afraid that the obligation to provide for these people, who were not trained national teachers and recognised as such, rests upon the communities for which they laboured over a period of years. I am sorry I was not able to bring them in at the time, but that is the position. Unfortunately, there are stray cases, but, generally speaking, the vast body of the teachers of this country are now entitled to pensions and to that extent, even though there are regrettable cases which we could not have covered, there is a tremendous improvement in the position.
Question put and agreed to.