Vol. 127 No. 4
We now have the motion for the Adjournment in the name of Senator Joe O'Toole:
The need to pay primary teachers on a fortnightly basis rather than a monthly or bimonthly and thereby eliminate what is clearly a discriminatory provision in as much as teachers are the only significantly sized group in the Civil or Public Service which do not have an option of fortnightly pay.
Well said, a Chathaoirligh, in your presentation of my case and that is precisely my case. If the Minister were to say yes at this point we could all go on and initiate the Christmas festivities. He does not seem to be inclined to accept so easily. I would say Minister we are dealing here with an issue that teachers are the only group in the public service who cannot budget on a weekly basis like the vast majority of workers. The situation for teachers is that in the month where there are five weekends or in the bimonthly period when there are three weekends, it just becomes impossible to budget. The world budgets on a weekly basis. Workers get paid weekly or fortnightly and on that basis people run their households, do their shopping and run their home budgets. I am aware, and the Minister will confirm that the Department of Education are now installing a new computerised system in the Department. This computer system will facilitate changes in the methods of payment.
I have raised this matter with the Department of Education on numerous occasions over the last four or five years. What I am now seeking from the Minister is a commitment that we will get the option to fortnightly payment as soon as that new computer system is put into operation or before. The Minister will be aware that at the moment 11,500 teachers are paid bimonthly, primary teachers are paid bimonthly. They are already being paid with an advance from the State. In other words, rather than getting payment on the third of each month, some of them are paid in the in-between period, between the third and the third of the next month. That is an advance.
The proposal I am putting to the Minister tonight would on occasions save the Department money because in certain years it is required that teachers be paid in the last weekend of the month and over the last weekend of the year. Sometimes payment has to be issued during the current year, thereby distorting the Estimates in the budget. May I say at this time that I intend sharing my time with Senators Costello and Ross, with five minutes each at the end.
If teachers are paid bimonthly it may include a period of three weekends or if they are paid on a monthly basis it may include five weekends, which means they are not able to budget. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for that. Teachers are the only group of public servants who are discriminated against in this way. It is only fair play and is no more than teachers deserve. They are entitled to get payment, like every other worker in the State, in a normal time period.
I do not understand the Department's problem in terms of their slowness to implement this. I have certainly been reasonable in my demands on this issue in the past. The Department have pointed out to me on a number of occcasions that the existing computer programme could not facilitate, without great difficulty to the Department, payment on a fortnightly basis. At that time I asked the Department if I could get a commitment to implement the new arrangements for fortnightly pay when a new computer system was installed. That is to take place in the next calendar year and all I require of the Minister is a commitment that this will be done, a commitment that teachers will be paid like other workers on a fortnightly basis. That commitment does not appear to create a problem for any other group of workers in the Civil Service or in the public service. Teachers would then be able to budget their money and households in the normal way on a weekly basis. Nobody can budget for this extra weekend in a month. In reality, the only month that works in budgeting terms for teachers is February because that is a four week month and people can budget on a four-week basis. Teachers are being discriminated against on this matter in a somewhat invidious way. The civil and public servants who deal with the payment of teachers are all paid on a fortnightly basis. I have never been given a reason why teachers could not be paid on a fortnightly basis apart from the mechanical and operational difficulties that would arise in the Department of Education.
For that reason, let us now allow teachers to get the normal type and frequency of payment as other workers, pay them on a fortnightly basis which will allow them to budget. It is obvious that teachers are not an overpaid group of workers. They are fairly meagrely paid at the best of times and this is something that the Minister will confirm. Having said that, could the Minister not make life somewhat easier for them by giving a simple and clear commitment that, with the introduction of a new computer facility, the Department of Education will guarantee that teachers will be paid on a fortnightly basis. The point is very clear and simple. I await the Minister's response and I defer to my two colleagues who have five minutes each before the Minister replies.
I support the motion that Senator O'Toole has put down for the Adjournment. This is as big a problem in the post-primary sector as in the primary sector, no one in the public or private sector has the option of being paid on a fortnightly basis or, indeed, on a weekly basis. Teachers are paid on a monthly basis or a bi-monthly basis. This is an anomolous situation that exists only in relation to teachers and there is no justification for its continuation. I do not understand why teachers are paid on the 5th of each month which means effectively that they have to wait five weeks for the original part of the salary to which they are entitled—no doubt the Department of Education benefit from the interest on that money. A couple of years ago it was the 12th of the month and teachers had to wait six weeks for a salary to which they were entitled from the beginning of the previous month. That is an anomalous and discriminatory situation.
In terms of rights and entitlements there is no answer to our claim that we should be paid at least on a fortnightly basis. We should certainly have the option of payment on a weekly basis. It really is invidious to say that the people who are in charge of paying us are, in fact, paid on a fortnightly basis, whereas we who are the recipients are not. The origins of this, I presume, go back to the old distinction between the salaried worker and the wage earner and the salaried earner being paid on a monthly basis. Indeed, way back they were paid on a six monthly basis. Imagine trying to budget on that. The wage earner was paid on a weekly basis. That is an antiquated system. There is no necessity for such distinctions now. That is the Dickensian fashion in which people were paid and it is time we rationalised and streamlined our system and paid teachers according to their needs. Their needs are to be able to handle their money in a rational, logical form.
As Senator O'Toole pointed out, everything focuses on the weekend and one's budget. If one is getting money a month ahead of time, it is much more difficult to organise it. If one can get it within two weeks then it is much easier to ensure one is able to deal with it properly. A bi-monthly payment is far different from a fortnightly payment. One is dealing with it on a regular basis and not on the vagaries of the length of the month, which causes undue problems in relation to the number of weekends, from three weekends to five weekends. That is virtually impossible to handle and is infuriating for people, especially those with large families, a mortgage and the numerous problems that arise in terms of budgeting on one's salary.
New technology has just been introduced in the Department of Education and they are trying to get control of various areas. If the Department do not address the salary side, as they have addressed their examinations branch it will be much more difficult to get it done in the future. When new technology is introduced it will be a simple matter of adjusting the term of payment initially instead of leaving it for years later.
Will the Minister also address the whole question of what has been a rather outworn technicality in terms of payment to the post-primary sector, that is the sum of money that is paid by the management of the voluntary secondary schools—the £400 that has not changed down through the years? That is also an anomaly and is now a mere token. That is paid at a different time. In the voluntary secondary system one moiety is paid from management at one time and then later, another from the Department of Education. They are both paid on a monthly basis. The entirely should be paid by the Department of Education on a fortnightly basis. The only response I ever got from the Department of Education is that it is too much trouble, there is too much administration involved and it creates difficulties. Everything is a difficulty with bureaucracy. It is up to the Department of Education to ensure they have the technical and administrative know-how which is accepted as the norm in every other sector. There is no reason why the Department of Education should lag behind all the other Departments and, certainly, why it should lag behind the private sector.
First, I would like to thank Senator O'Toole for a very short part of his time on this Adjournment debate. The issue of teachers' payment is a symptom of the way that Governments have successively taken teachers for granted for many years. Whereas the issue in itself may not seem important, the refusal of the Government to solve it is indicative of their attitude to the teaching profession. To a large extent they are a neglected group and have been taken for granted by successive Governments.
This is only a small and minor plea for equal treatment for teachers in an area where other public servants are getting particular treatment. I would like to add my voice to those of Senators O'Toole and Costello. Will the Minister consider the position of teachers who, as Senator O'Toole rightly said, are in the same position as other public servants in that they may wish, because of their financial situation and because they are an underpaid group in society, to budget weekly as they may find it impossible to budget monthly? They should simply have that option which is being refused by the Department now.
An ideal opportunity is being offered to the Department to change this system by the introduction of a new computer in the Department of Education. It will not be good enough for the Minister to come back and say this would be administratively difficult. He has to justify it on moral and ethical grounds and to say why the teachers themselves have been singled out for different treatment from anybody else. Their lot in society is difficult enough. They are discriminated against in that their qualifications are not recognised in some countries abroad. They have great difficulties about changing employment, about moving from job to job, and they do not have the privileges or the security of other public servants. I ask the Minister to consider the pleas that have been made today and make this small concession which would be so good for the morale of the teaching profession.
I am tempted to say at the outset in this season of goodwill that if I ever find myself in trouble I would love to have those three Senators help me make my case, to get me out of whatever difficulties I might be in, especially when it came to the morale and ethical bit at the end.
I agree with much of what has been said by all three Senators. It does seem unreasonable that more than 20,000 teachers in the primary sector—and indeed as Senator Costello pointed out in the post-primary sector—are paid monthly; they should be paid fortnightly as are most other professions. However, the system for the employment and payment of primary teachers is unique in that they cannot be directly compared with any other group in the public service. Primary teachers are employed by boards of management of national schools and the payment of salary is made by my Department on behalf of the board. In accordance with the provisions under the rules for national schools, salaries cannot be paid to a primary teacher unless certain certified documentation is submitted to my Department by the manager of the school.
Senators will acknowledge that the primary payroll is a very large one. There are more than 20,000 teachers on that payroll and any alteration to it has administrative and financial implications which are being studied at present. I will certainly come back to the Senators to inform them of the progress being made. Essentially that is what I want to convey this evening. However, it is only right that I should refer to some of the difficulties that have been mentioned by the Senators and which exist.
Undoubtedly, the provision of a new payment system on a fortnightly basis would require the allocation of scarce resources to deal with the extra administrative work that would arise. Given the stringent cutbacks, and indeed staff restrictions, that exist in the Department of Education we have an immediate, very practical difficulty. I take the point being made, that we should not say that administrative difficulties or an increased workload are good enough reasons not to accede to Senator O'Toole's request. Quite frankly until I went to the Department of Education I did not realise the very serious difficulties which staff in the Department have to work under because of the very low level of staffing now, in comparison to ten years ago, when many more people were employed to do much less work than is now the case.
That is true but is it fair that teachers should suffer because of that? That is the point I want to make.
The difficulty, as the Senator will appreciate, is that everybody is suffering. New initiatives such as those he mentioned are desirable and it would certainly be the wish of the Minister and myself to have them brought into being. However, reality is that even if we were to decide in the morning that we would pay teachers fortnightly, from a practical point of view it is just not possible. There are many things right now in my area of responsibility in the Department that I want to do, which can and should be done but I just do not have the manpower to do it. In fact, the civil servants who are working in that area and in several areas for which I have responsibility are working way above and beyond the call of duty to try to keep up with the level of work. This is a real problem. Before I went into the Department I would have been critical, in a general way, of their performance on many issues such as this one but when I saw the very serious practical difficulties and the great pressure that public servants in the Department of Education are under I appreciated that it is not quite as simple as to merely make a decision. Having said that, I appreciate the point made and I think everybody will agree that teachers should be paid on a fortnightly basis.
Senators have mentioned the question of the new technology now available which inevitably cuts down the workload. While there are some other issues such as agreement of the management authorities and, perhaps, a more efficient method of the reporting system which exists in regard to salary payment, we are anxious to see if an improvement can be made and a development brought about where teachers could be paid on a fortnightly basis. I have asked my Department to give the work they have been doing in this respect their most urgent attention so that perhaps sooner rather than later we may be able to get over the practical difficulties and find the extra money which is always the root of all evil and go ahead with the proposal to pay on a fortnightly basis.
Is the Minister saying that when he has the problems sorted he intends to implement fortnightly payments?
The Senator is looking for Santa Claus a week early.
I would be happy with next Christmas if the Minister will do it.
Obviously, the considerations I have mentioned have to be carefully examined and only when the practical difficulties are solved, will the Minister for Education be in a position to say that we can go ahead. The Minister's wish is to bring about this development but only when we get over the very important obstacles that are there now.
I concur with what Senator Costello said in regard to post-primary teachers even though it is not the subject of the motion. I am amazed to find the figure is still £400. It was £400 in my time and I am now nine years out of teaching. Surely there must be a more efficient and direct way of paying the full salary to post-primary teachers than the present system? I will undertake to have that examined and see if in the context of the overall evolvement of salary payments we can change that.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.25 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 20 December 1990.
