I agree with the Minister when he attempted to convey that the Bill is not quite as simple as it looks. The object, as he explained it and as I understood it, is to rearrange the basis upon which grants have hitherto been largely paid for the purpose of Intermediate Education. Grants were, as the Minister stated, payable to a considerable extent on the results of examinations, and it is now proposed, and I quite agree with him that it is right, to change that basis. But for the first time I have learnt that it is proposed to substitute a capitation basis. That does not appear on the face of the Bill, nor am I aware that any regulations have yet been issued to provide that grants will in future be paid on capitation. I take it from what the Minister has said that is the intention. As the Minister has stated, the Fund which is known as the School Grant comes from two sources, that is, from the interest accruing on the old Grant that was made in 1878 from the Church Temporalities Fund, and from the money derivable from the Customs and Excise Grant, or what used to be familiarly called the "Whiskey Money." So far as the first and second portions of the Schedule are concerned I have no objection to make beyond saying what I said in the beginning, that I was not quite clear of what basis the Minister proposes to introduce for the distribution of the grants. The repeal set out in the first portion of the Schedule where it is stated that these words will be deleted, namely "dependent on the results of the public examination of students." As I say, I have no objection to that, and the same practically applies to the second one. But when we come to the third mentioned in the Schedule, a new and wholly different question arises.
I would like to dwell on the origin of this Act of 1914. The Act was passed principally, if not entirely, because of the agitation which was carried on for a considerable number of years by the lay intermediate teachers. The Act in the first section set up a Registration Council, and the second section, which it is now proposed to repeal, I shall read to the Dáil, because it is important that the Dáil should be aware of its terms. This is the section:
"From and after the commencement of this Act there shall be provided to the Board in each year out of moneys provided by Parliament a sum not exceeding £40,000, and an amount equivalent to the sum so paid (in this Act referred to as the Teachers' Salaries Grant) shall be applied by the Board in the manner provided by rules made by the Lord Lieutenant under this Act, and approved by the Treasury."
Now, the Teachers' Salaries' Grant was what its name implies, and was intended for the teachers, and the rules made under that section contained what I may call the Magna Charta of the lay teachers. It was the first time that even the existence of the lay teacher was recognised in the Intermediate system. Under no previous Act was there any reference whatever made to the lay teacher. The rules which were made under that particular section provided there should be a minimum salary for lay teachers. The minimum salary was fixed at £140. Even in 1914 that was not very much, but it was something; it fixed a minimum salary. There was also a provision in these rules that one lay teacher should be employed for every forty pupils. It is known as the "one in forty proportion." There was a guarantee secured thereby that a certain number of lay teachers would be employed in the schools.
Now that did not mean that that particular regulation, the one in forty proportion, should apply to any individual school, but it was arranged rather by what is known as the group system—the Catholic schools and the Protestant schools—that in each group that proportion would be observed. I may mention in passing that that proportion, so far as one group is concerned, the Catholic group, was, I am informed, never observed, although to some extent it was observed. That, however, does not get away from the fact that it was there. It gave a certain guarantee that lay teachers would be employed. There was a further regulation in these rules that a lay teacher would have a three months' contract of agreement. Before that there was no such regulation and the people responsible for the schools might, at the end of the school year, simply tell the lay teacher, the very day on which the school was breaking up, that he might not come back after the summer holidays. One of the provisions of the rules made under this particular section was that there should be a three months' contract. It is proposed in this Bill to repeal this section which I have read. I maintain, and I think there can be no possible doubt about it, that if the section is repealed, all these rules made in pursuance of the section must fall, because it states here that a sum not exceeding £40,000 must be set aside and shall be applied in the manner provided by the rules made by the Lord Lieutenant under this Act. If it is the case, and I think it will be generally admitted that it is, that if the section goes, the rules made in pursuance of the section must, as a matter of course, go also.
Then the position is this, that by this simple act you are wiping out all the advantages which were gained by the lay teachers under the Birrell Act of 1914. That is what it comes to in a nutshell— the teachers go back to the pre-1914 position. It seems to me that that is clearly and obviously the effect of repealing Section 2 of the Intermediate Education Act of 1914. If it were absolutely necessary, in order to establish the principle which the Minister says he wants to establish, and which I agree is necessary, there may be some reason for repealing this particular section but I hold it is not essential. In the other two Acts it is definitely set out that the moneys which are paid depend on the results of examinations, but in this case, it is nowhere stated in the Act of 1914. What is stated is that this money shall be applied by the Board in the manner provided by the rules made by the Lord Lieutenant. The rules are made by the Lord Lieutenant and I take it, of course, that the Department has power without legislation to alter the rules which were made by the Lord Lieutenant then. That being so, if there is anything in these rules which makes the payment of grants dependent on results, I hold that the Department can change that particular portion without wiping away all the rules.
So far as I can discover in the rules, there are two or three sentences, one of which says, in Rule 2, that certain sums shall be distributed annually by the Board amongst managers of the intermediate schools to whom results fees are paid, and the words "result fees" occur in at least one other place. I maintain that if the word "grants" were submitted for the words "result fees" in the rules the position would have been fully met and the Department could not be charged with simply wiping away all these rules which do preserve certain rights for the secondary teachers. I need not point out to members in this Dáil the deplorable position, I may say the scandalous position, in which secondary teachers find themselves to-day. They are crying out for improvement in their positions, and the improvement is admittedly long overdue, but under this measure, I maintain, the effect will be that even the little modicum of right given in 1914, after a severe struggle and long continued agitation is wiped out as a matter of course. It is not necessary that that should be done. It is not necessary that it should even get the appearance of being done because, as I say, it is open to the Department to alter the rules, and the alteration required is not very much. But if alteration is required in the rules, it is obvious that no alteration is necessary in the section which I read out, because it clearly provides that the grants may be applied according to the rules.
If alteration is necessary it is in the rules and the Department are there without repealing the section to alter the rules to bring them into consonance with the objects they want to achieve. My position in the matter is this, while I agree with the principle which is announced—the necessity for changing the basis on which the grants are paid—I do hold that it is not necessary for that purpose which the Minister has in view, to have that second section of the Act of 1914 repealed. I hold, further, that if it is repealed a grievous wrong will be done to the lay secondary teachers in the Saorstát, because it will be taking from them whatever rights they have secured. They are not much, but such as they are, they are there without giving them anything in exchange, without giving them anything in return. At present, as I say, they have a right to contract, a right to a minimum salary, a right to be employed in certain proportions, and if you take out this section of the Act and take with it the rules which must go with it, what is left to them? Nothing. They are just back to the position in which they were before this regulation was passed. I do not see my way to support the Second Reading of this Bill unless I am assured that at the next stage of the Bill this section, to which I have called special attention, will be deleted. I do not know, when the section was inserted in the Bill, whether the full effect of it was adverted to. I can hardly believe that it was, but I hope when the Minister is winding up the debate that he will give and assurance that the deletion of this section will not be insisted on. As I say, if it is, I will have no other course open but to oppose the Bill as strongly as I can, and ask every Deputy in the House who knows, and from that knowledge must of necessity sympathise with the position of the lay secondary teachers, to oppose it also.