I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. As the House will see, this is simply an enabling Bill to enable the Minister for Education, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to prepare certain schemes. This will, of course, involve the expenditure of public money, and, in the ordinary case of bringing forward a Bill that will involve a charge on the State, possibly in the present condition of affairs some justification would be necessary. But the demand has been so universal, even from those who demand economy on all sides, for a pension scheme, especially for one class of teacher, I find it unnecessary to debate the wisdom of bringing in a Bill of this kind, even at the present moment, and even though it actually will involve some burden on the State.
The principal agitation in connection with pensions for teachers, those teachers who do not at present enjoy pensions, has been in connection with secondary teachers. It would have been possible for us to have brought in a Bill specifically dealing with secondary teachers alone, but there are other cases in which it may be necessary or advisable if circumstances permitted to deal with pensions for other classes of teachers. Hence, after a certain amount of consideration it was thought advisable to proceed in this particular way. That is, simply to introduce a Bill that would enable a scheme to be drawn up and, so far as the Oireachtas is concerned, instead of presenting it with a Bill in every individual case and every individual scheme, to provide that the scheme shall get the actual sanction of both Houses, not merely that it will lie upon the Table of the House, and, if not objected to, come into force, as the Deputies will see by reference to paragraph 4, but that it will lie on the Table and have to be actually confirmed by a resolution of each House.
So far as the secondary teachers are concerned, I think I announced well over a year ago that the Minister for Finance and myself had agreed that the principle ought to be accepted that secondary teachers ought to get pensions. We felt it was necessary in the interests of education, leaving out any other consideration; that is, leaving out any consideration in which an appeal might be made on what might be loosely called humanitarian grounds. There was the other consideration, that at present, largely also on humanitarian grounds, teachers are being kept on by schools beyond the period in which they could give useful service simply because the heads of the schools do not care to dismiss them as there is no pension for them.
Even from the strict economic interest of education alone the Minister for Finance and myself agreed that a pension scheme for secondary teachers should be introduced, but when it came to the discussion of the details there was considerable delay experienced. We thought first the obvious way to proceed would be to get an actuarial investigation into the case. After that had gone a certain distance and we had more time to consider the various aspects of the case and accumulate the information with regard to the numbers of teachers and the different types of schools and the great irregularity of the services of those teachers—teachers dropping out for a year or two and coming in again—we were convinced that an actuary in the strict sense could not give us much useful information on which to base a scheme. Therefore, we determined to frame a scheme as best we could. The Bill makes provision for schemes of that kind, for the setting up of a fund for any teacher who wishes to enter a scheme by his paying a portion, as in the case of national teachers—a certain percentage of his salary—into the fund. There is the provision also that in the case of the schools any teacher who wishes to enter the scheme shall pay a certain contribution and also that there shall be paid in such moneys as the House may choose to vote for that particular purpose. That is the main principle of this particular Bill.
As I indicated, it will be a contributory scheme in which there will be three principal contributors, the teachers, the schools and the State. As in the case of the national teachers, you have two principal contributors, the teachers themselves and the State. The position is somewhat different in the case of the secondary teachers. Strictly speaking, neither primary or secondary teachers are in the position of civil servants. Neither class of teacher is a servant of the State; they are not direct employees of the State. Strictly speaking, they are private employees of the manager in the one case and the heads of the school in the other. Undoubtedly they are performing national work and, in the case of the secondary teachers, in some ways the secondary schools are more of a private concern than the national schools. The State does actually make itself responsible for the payment of the increments.
There are many reasons, therefore, why the State should undertake the setting up of a scheme of this particular kind. They will have to make arrangements not merely for what I may call the normal working of the scheme—that is, when the scheme has become fully contributory—but also for the transition period. We realise that there are at present a number of people in the service who want to retire. Some of them are retiring, if they have not retired already, and contributions in their case will be out of the question. That has been met in various ways. Under the scheme in Northern Ireland there is practically a lump sum mentioned in the case of the maximum and so many years' service. We have tried to adopt what we regard as a fairer plan—namely, a certain fraction of the years of service. There are some details of the scheme which yet require to be settled between the Minister for Finance and myself. The main outlines of the scheme are ready, and when this Bill becomes law the scheme will, I hope, be submitted to the House. I do not pretend that the scheme is overgenerous, and I am far from pretending that it will satisfy everybody. That is out of the question. I think that any scheme that we adopt will be such as the resources of the country will permit. When speaking on this matter before, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, I made the statement that in case of any retirements, with due notice and with the consent of the Minister after the date of the announcement referred to, the scheme could be made to date back to that retirement. That is to say, if there was delay, there would be, as far as possible, no injustice to any person who wished to retire. We were delaying not because we were anxious to save any money by such a delay, but because of the complications which the scheme involved. and we were anxious that in the case of any teacher who wanted to retire after the date of that statement, made in 1927, the pensions could be dated back to that date. By that statement the Minister for Finance and myself will stand.