I move:—
Being of opinion that the provisions made for the payment of pensions to retired national school teachers have been totally inadequate, and that in existing circumstances, due to the substantial depreciation in the value of money, their present rate of pension is in most cases obviously insufficient to satisfy their reasonable needs, this House requests the Government to revise the scale of pensions with a view to making proper provision for the retired teachers.
The purpose of this motion is to enlist the sympathy of the House and of the Minister for Education, who will be speaking on behalf of the Government, towards the reasonable claims of the retired national teachers, because of the services they have rendered to the nation, services which not only entitle them to sympathetic but indeed to generous consideration. The Minister will probably contribute to this discussion the point of view that it is, if not impossible, at least not exactly easy, to segregate the claims of State pensioners as a whole and that it would not be within his province to deal with the question of retired teachers. I suggest that, in the course of this debate, reasons will be adduced to convince him that these individuals can be placed in a special category.
On the question of pensions for all retired servants, I think it right that I should repeat a point of view I expressed last night, because of its importance. There is considerable surprise amongst the people as a whole, because of conditions which are known to everybody arising out of the cost of living, that the Government so far have taken no steps in regard to retired servants. Apart from the necessity of doing that immediately, there is the desirability of doing it, if for no other reason than that of removing the cynical belief now growing up that the aged people must be regarded in the future as scrap. Public bodies and private employers are waiting for a lead from the Government on this particular issue, and I am satisfied that if that lead is given early, substantial benefit will flow to a large number of servants of public bodies and of private concerns.
In this debate we will endeavour to show that the retired teachers come into a special category. In the first place, it is well known that for a long number of years their salaries were so wretchedly low as to become a by-word in our history, so bad indeed that they evoked from a British Prime Minister on one occasion the statement that the salaries of Irish teachers were a disgrace to British administration. I may say that that point of view was more or less subscribed to by members of this Government and of the past Government. The salaries, until comparatively recently, continued in that very low category, in varying degrees from 1922. It follows that if salaries are low and if pensions are related to and based on low salaries, pensions must inevitably be low.
We can understand what that would mean in normal times, but when low salaries producing low pensions are related to the position as we see it to-day, a position in which the cost of living has sky-rocketed to the extent of 70 per cent. above what it was in 1939, it is easy to get a picture of the domestic affairs of a large number of people who are now living on what may be described as low fixed incomes. That is one reason why the retired teacher differs in principle from the average State servant who has been retired, because, as I have said, he has enjoyed, if I may use the word, a consistently low salary for the greater portion of his service.
There is the second reason that the teacher, while his salary is based on the same schedule as the civil servant, that is, an eightieth for each year of service, suffers the disability, as compared with the civil servant, that he is denied the retiring allowance or gratuity which flows to the civil servant up to a maximum of a year and a half's salary. The same disparity may be said to apply—and indeed in greater measure—to the servants of local authorities who receive, also on the basis of non-contributory pensions, two-thirds of their retiring salaries as also applies, I understand, to the Garda. Here, therefore, in the case of teachers, we have definite and specific deviations from the ordinary code of State pensions, and I, therefore, suggest that, if the Minister uses the argument that they cannot be treated as a class apart, the House will agree with the contention I am making that there are substantial reasons why they can be dealt with now.
As an instance of what the position is in regard to retired teachers, I have only to give the House the following table. There are roughly 3,000 pensioned teachers, of whom 309 have pensions of £1 or less per week, 143 have pensions of between £1 and 30/-, 218 between 30/- and 40/-, 700 between 40/- and 50/-, 810 between 50/- and 60/- and 934 over 60/-. In other words, of the total number, 2,180 have less than £3 a week, whereas the over-all average pension is £132 per annum, or, in round figures, 50/- per week, which may very well be split in two in order to get the purchasing value of that amount at present. Taking the case of Northern Ireland pensions—and I think there will be no disagreement with an analogy of that kind being made—we find the approach to this question along these lines. In November last, in the Northern House of Commons, the Minister of Finance, Major Sinclair, dealing with the question, said:—
"I should like to point out that there is no obligation on the Government to do anything at all in this direction because in fixing pension rates, no matter what time they are fixed, no consideration is given to the future trend of the cost of living or whether it will go up or whether it will come down. I might cite an example. Supposing one takes out an insurance policy, and that is what a contributory pension is, to have paid to one the sum of £100 a year when one retires at the age of 50, would any insurance company entertain a plea that owing to the higher cost of living, they should now pay £130? No insurance company would consider that for a moment and, strictly speaking, there is no reason why the Government should."
It is unnecessary for me to say that there is no relation between an insurance premium and a pension granted by the State. One pays an insurance premium for a particular purpose to an insurance company as against a pensioner who has given service to the State and with whom it may be said that the State has entered into certain contractual obligations.
But, having said that, the Finance Minister in the Northern House of Commons went on to indicate that, notwithstanding his view, as expressed in the quotation I have given, the retired teachers in the North of Ireland were about to benefit in a substantial way. They have done so to this extent, that bonuses have been granted of 30 per cent. to those with less than £100 a year, of 25 per cent. to those with less than £200 per year and 20 per cent. to those with less than £300 per year. In addition, and it is rather important and, indeed, remarkable, having regard to the previous statement of Major Sinclair, the Northern Government found it possible also to give retiring gratuities to those actually on pension. That is the position of teachers in Northern Ireland.
I want to draw attention now to another disability from which our teachers here have suffered as a result of an administrative act on the part of the Department of Education. In 1938 without due warning, so far as I know, the Department decided to retire compulsorily a number of lady teachers, to the number of about 600 and representing approximately one-fifth of the entire number now on pension, at the age of 60, notwithstanding the fact that they had enjoyed, if not a prescriptive right, a privilege covering a period of some 30 odd years of continuing to teacn until they reached the age of 65. These teachers were swept out of the profession at a time when, I suggest to the Minister, their domestic commitments were probably at their peak. From our own personal experience, we can understand that a lady teacher might have children just about to be educated or might be supporting some elderly member of her family, and, in a number of ways of that kind, it will be agreed that round and about that age is a time of domestic anxiety for a number of people.
I suggest that these lady teachers, to the number of 600 odd, have suffered a grave injustice. They have suffered by reason of the fact that they were not alone deprived of enjoying their full pension rights at the age of 65, but in respect of the interim period between 60 and 65—it might be that some of them were going out at 62—they lost the salary they would have enjoyed in those years. As indicating that the hardship of that particular state of affairs was apparently realised, the Department subsequently revoked that Order and I understand that lady teachers now can continue teaching until the age of 65.
I have tried to indicate that the teacher is in a distinct category from other State pensioners. I want to add this further point as weighting their credit balance on this particular claim, that in 1934 the teachers' pension fund was taken over by the Government. I am not going into the question—it may be controversial—as to whether or not since 1934 there has actually been a contribution, either direct or indirect, so far as pension is concerned. But the general belief is that following 1934, because of a certain scaling down of salaries— 9 per cent. I think it was—at the time, that within that scaling down of 9 per cent., 4 per cent. was to be debited against teachers' pensions.
In any case, this emerges from the taking over of the pension fund by the Government at that time, that as a result of the capital moneys provided by the teachers in the teachers' fund and the capital moneys available from what is known as the Church Temporalities Fund, the Government has had, since 1934, an annual contribution from both funds amounting to £83,000 a year. That sum, since 1934, in other words multiplied by 12, gives a very nice figure indeed, and at least a good proportion of it, not all, must be credited to the people now out on pension.
I have indicated that the retired teacher is in a class apart from the ordinary civil servant for special consideration, because, in the first place, of the admittedly low salaries down the years; in the second place, because there is a disparity so far as their retiring allowance is concerned—in fact, they get no retiring allowance; thirdly, because of the hardship owing to the sudden decision in 1938 to deprive lady teachers of their teaching rights up to 65 years of age; and, finally, the contribution to which I have referred made out of funds which were available because of the efforts, at least in part, of the teachers themselves.
I put it to the House and to the Minister that poverty at any time must inevitably bring hardship in its wake, but, obviously, poverty can be aggravated to a very serious degree when you have coupled with it the refinement of education. That is the position to which upwards of 3,000 of our highly cultured citizens have been reduced. I am afraid that it is rather an indict ment of our concept of education and educational matters that individuals who are highly trained for educational purposes should now find themselves in the evening of their lives in a condition of distress. I have here a number of authenticated details of individual members of the teaching profession who have been retired which would leave this House under no illusion as to what these people are suffering. I have considered whether or not I should give these details and I have decided that it would not be wise to do so, because it is possible that some of the individuals might be identified, at least by their friends, as being in a state of poverty at present and it might hurt their feelings.
I ask for sympathetic consideration for a very deserving class of the community who have rendered service down the years, not the least of which —and the Minister may be interested in this—was the personal sacrifice in time and money which they made when advanced in years to learn the Irish language and to equip themselves to such a degree that they would be in a position to impart it to their students. These people are now thrown on the scrap heap. I could not describe them as dissatisfied. They are perhaps cynical. Nevertheless, they are prepared to thrust their cynicism aside on this occasion, to which they are looking forward with interest. They feel that their services will not have been forgotten, that their present position will be understood and appraised, and that it may be possible for this House, as a result of this motion, to bring them a speedy amelioration of their conditions.
