I beg to move: "That an additional sum of £79,400 be granted for the year ending 31st March, 1923, for the expenses of the Department of National Education, including grants in aid of the Teachers' Pension Fund." For these disbursements the Minister for Education will give some logical reasons.
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - EDUCATION AND TEACHERS' PENSION FUND.
The increase in the Supplementary Estimates is, I think, self-explanatory. At all events, the details of explanation given on the paper under item No. 3 are pretty full. The items are all small, with the exception of two. As regards the first item, for administration, half the amount is absorbed in the salary of the Minister, and I think it would not be appropriate for me to enter into a defence of that item at this stage. The other principal item is the additional provision required to meet increased expenditure on salaries of teachers. That item arose because when the additional provision was made at the beginning of the year—when the Estimates were prepared—it was impossible to forecast how provision for the increased salaries of teachers would work out. The full effect of the new scale of salaries for teachers was not reached until the current financial year—that is to say, the full financial effect of it. As to the full effect of it on education generally, I do not think it has been reached yet, or will be reached for some time to come; and I trust that the improved position of primary teachers, which is represented by this increase, will lead in the future— and in the early future—to another effect: that the increased expenditure on this particular item will be amply repaid in a benefit to the nation generally.
I would like, in view of the remarks made by the Minis ter for Finance, to call his attention to the fact, which I am sure the Minister for Education will bear me out in, that this increase here is not due to any new regulations that have been introduced, but rather to the failure to estimate, at the time the Estimates were prepared, the total amount that would be required to carry out the arrangements which had been already entered into.
Would it be in order to ask the Minister for Education why he has not included in the Supplementary Estimates a grant in aid of University College, Dublin? The question has already been raised here.
It would not be in order.
In a supplementary grant for public education? Is public education not in order, or are we confined to a special department which happens to be specifically named?
I am not responsible far the nomenclature, but public education does mean in this particular case primary education.
I do not wish to appear to argue with An Ceann Comhairle. I would rather argue with the Minister for Education. But I submit that the question of University College, Dublin, does affect primary education, in-asmuch as an important part of its work provides for the training of teachers and the granting of diplomas. The National School teachers—the primary teachers— who have taken out the higher diploma of the National University, receive higher salaries out of these very figures which are put before us.
Perhaps the Deputy has now got sufficient of his point in.
The Deputy refers to a Vote for which no Supplementary Estimate is asked.
I am sure everyone will be glad to hear that explanation from the President.
Motion put and agreed to.