asked the Minister for Education if the National Parents' Council will be given a full place on any monitoring committee on the implementation of the post-primary pupil-teacher ratio of 20:1 in vocational, community and comprehensive schools.
21.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Pupil-Teacher Ratio.
1.
asked the Minister for Education her present proposals, in view of the collapse of talks between herself and the representatives of vocational education entered into under the aegis of the Central Review Committee on foot of a Dáil Éireann resolution, concerning redundancies in the vocational sector.
37.
asked the Minister for Education if, in view of the decision of the members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland to reject the proposals regarding the pupil-teacher ratio in vocational, community and comprehensive schools which had been drawn up under the aegis of the Central Review Committee of the Programme for National Recovery, she will dismiss these proposals; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
49.
asked the Minister for Education the plans she has for further discussions with parents and teachers on the Government's proposal to disimprove the pupil-teacher ratio at vocational, community and comprehensive schools following the rejection by the members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland of the proposed agreement.
75.
asked the Minister for Education the full terms of the agreement reached with the post-primary teachers unions on the proposed 20:1 pupil-teacher ratio for vocational, community and comprehensive schools; and the way in which it differs from the original proposal made by the Government after the Estimates for 1988 were published in October 1987.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1, 21, 37, 49 and 75 together. Question No. 49 is a priority question and I seek your guidance as to whether we can take it now.
Question No. 1 is a separate question from all the other questions which have to do with specific discussions about an agreement carried out under the aegis of the Central Review Committee. Question No. 1 relates to a monitoring committee——
It is a normal practice for Ministers to take questions together when they are clearly related. Questions Nos. 1, 21, 37, 49 and 75 to be taken together.
They are not clearly related.
The draft agreement was the result of prolonged discussions between the teachers' unions and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on the one hand and Government Departments on the other. It was accepted by all concerned that this was the best that could be achieved in implementation of the resolution of Dáil Éireann. I wish to talk about that resolution passed by Dáil Éireann on 9 March 1988.
The implications of the decision to increase the pupil-teacher ratio at second level were examined under the aegis of the Central Review Committee of the Programme for National Recovery.
These discussions resulted in the formulation of a draft agreement, a copy of which I am arranging to have placed in the Library of the Oireachtas. I am sure the Deputies will agree that in offering such significant reductions in the number of teaching posts to be saved, the Government have more than honoured the spirit of the Dáil resolution towards ensuring that the burden of adjustment to the new pupil-teacher ratio does not fall on the disadvantaged.
The draft agreement has been endorsed by one of the teacher unions involved but rejected by the other union. I have since met representatives of the latter union but they have reaffirmed their rejection of the draft agreement.
The Government have decided, however, in the spirit of the negotiations under the auspices of the Programme for National Recovery, to allocate teaching posts for the coming school year along the lines of the draft agreement.
While the discussions on foot of the Dáil resolution have come to an end, I shall be happy to consider any views which parents or teachers or management wish to put to me within the parameters of the draft agreement. The discussions took place between the teachers' unions, ICTU and the Government Departments, which arrangement is allowed for under the Programme for National Recovery.
One of the questions which the Minister has taken is Priority Question No. 49 on which I have plenty of supplementaries to ask. I have a supplementary question to ask on Question No. 1 in the name of Deputy O'Flaherty. In the draft agreement, of which I have a copy — it is rather late in the day to be putting it before the Oireachtas since it had been announced such a long time ago — it is stated that there will be a monitoring review group and that it will be representative of the Department of Education, school management, the TUI and the ASTI. I should like to ask the Minister why the National Parents' Council was specifically excluded from that review committee when the parents' association representing vocational, community and comprehensive schools were generous enough to say that they would accept the draft agreement. The Minister has, unfortunately, set back the movement of parents in this country. Why has she excluded them in the draft agreement and will she now include them in that review group?
I appeal for brief questions and we shall make much more progress.
I should like to answer the allegation which was made that the production of the draft agreement was very late. Quite obviously the unions had to vote and they did so last week. The second question which the Deputy put to me asked why parents were excluded from the monitoring procedure. The actual Dáil vote to which Deputy Hussey produced the solution which won the vote was to refer the whole question to the Programme for National Recovery, the Central Review Committee. This was done and, therefore, we had to adhere to the terms of the Programme for National Recovery and to the social partners who were partners to that programme. That is set up. The monitoring review committee was devised under the Programme for National Recovery under the Central Review Committee and, therefore, we live within that draft agreement. As an addendum to that, I should like to say that I have already agreed to meet with the two bodies concerned, one is the overall umbrella group of the National Parents' Council at second level and the other is the Association of Parents of Students in Vocational, Community and Comprehensive Schools. I have agreed — I do not have the precise date with me — to meet with those parent groups and to discuss with them the implications of the draft agreement.
In view of the fact that school management are included in the famous review group from which parents are excluded, and school management are not part of the monitoring committee of the Central Review Committee under the Programme for National Recovery, why were parents excluded?
I can assure the Deputy that I have already met with parents on several occasions. Following that draft programme I have instituted an immediate setting up of a meeting with the two parents' bodies concerned — the National Parents' Council at second level and the Association of Parents of Students in Vocational, Community and Comprehensive Schools. I intend to discuss with them at considerable length the scope and nature of the draft agreement.
Mrs. Hussey rose.
I will come back to the Deputy. Deputy Higgins has a question down also.
I am reluctant to take any time from Deputy Hussey because I sympathise with her position. Question No. 21 specifically asked the Minister what her proposals were in the wake of the rejection of the draft agreement which was on the table on the occasion of the talks under the aegis of the Central Review Committee. I should like to ask her specifically why she insisted on offering the 400 odd posts in the form which she did when by making a different form of proposal she could have disposed of the posts across the vocational sector more generally? Will she indicate now how she proposes to implement the redundancies arising from the change in the ratio? What form of communication will she make in regard to compulsory redundancies? Will she specify in which sector she is going to allocate the disadvantaged posts which I presume are part of the 400 posts of which she has been speaking?
There is no such thing as compulsory redundancy in the public sector. The Deputy may have inadvertently used the word when he asked when I intend to implement the compulsory redundancies. There are no such proposals in my Department or, I understand, in any Department or Government agency. The second question was why we are agreeing to allocate those posts in specific ways. That was on foot of the Dáil motion which won the vote on the night in question. The ameliorations which would follow from the Programme for National Recovery discussions would be aimed at alleviating what would seem to be the adverse effect upon disadvantaged areas. Two parameters were laid down there, the Programme for National Recovery and the Dáil motion and in line with both of those the allocation of the 400 plus posts will be made.
In view of the fact that the Dáil motion of 9 March did not mention disadvantaged areas but concentrated on the fact that the vocational sector in general dealt with disadvantaged students, there was no need to interpret it in the way the Minister has just pointed out. In view of the difficulty she has run into with the TUI, and I believe there is goodwill on the part of that union and on the part of the Minister, could she not look again at those 400 posts? For example, there is de facto now a different PTR with the restoration of those posts. I understand the PTR could be described as something like 18.2 to 1. Can the Minister tell the Dáil today that she will have another look at the allocation of those 400 posts so that she could come closer to the TUI's concern and we could have a peaceful beginning to the next school year instead of more difficulties ahead? This will not cost one penny.
Let me first put on record the goodwill which existed on the part of the teachers' union, the Government and the Government Departments involved in the talks. An enormous amount of time and effort was given by all concerned and I thank all for their efforts. Secondly, there is great goodwill between the TUI and myself, to allay whatever misapprehensions — I do not suppose they are fears — which may have arisen. Following the very long meeting I had with the teachers' representatives last week I had a further long informal meeting with them at which various matters were discussed. To go back to Deputy Hussey's question regarding the allocation of the 400 plus posts, I find this new development rather extraordinary on the part of the Deputy and other Deputies who may or may not raise it.
That is nothing new.
We wished to target specifically the schools which would be at a disadvantage in a changed ratio. Surely it cannot be but good that one would wish to do so. The executive of the teachers' union and all concerned agreed with the layout of the draft agreement.
The members did not.
They agreed with the targeting of the posts which were to help the disadvantaged. We left the TUI on whatever day we had the meeting on the clear understanding that they were going back to the full membership of their executive, where they would be having further discussions and then they would come back to us. That is the situation at present.
I repeat there is no change on this side of the House in the terms of reference of that Dáil motion. We are all clear on what we were talking about which was that the vocational sector in general deals with disadvantaged students on a non-selective basis. I urge the Minister strongly to hold on to the special allocation within that 400 for the small rural schools who are going to have difficulties. I ask her again if she will consider as a request from this House today looking again at the allocation of those posts because the teachers' union executive may have taken away that draft agreement but the teachers' union members have rejected it. We need now a spirit of goodwill, co-operation and compromise and I am asking the Minister if she will bring that spirit back to her discussions. May I have an answer to that?
Deputy Higgins was offering.
Are we on the next question?
Will there be compromise?
Again, I ask the Minister how she proposes to inform those VECs of the posts that are to be reduced so that, for example, CEO's may know the position. Out of the specified areas about 50 posts are left to go around all the other VECs. What does the Minister propose and by what criteria is she going to inform the people involved? Would she not agree that if she moved back from her rigid insistence on changing the ratio she might get more agreement and some form of compromise proposal?
I think the Deputy is asking two questions, the first referring to voluntary redundancy. If it refers to that, that is the subject of a separate question. Secondly, the Deputy asked me to reconsider the allocation of the posts. I understand Deputy Hussey asked the same in an altered version. As I said, the TUI executive went to discuss and debate with their greater executive and are to come back to the Department of Education again.
A Cheann Comhairle——
Question No. 2 in the name of Deputy Dick Spring. Sorry Deputy, I was anxious to make progress on other questions. I have devoted over a quarter of an hour to these questions.
They are very important.
Maybe so but the other questions are also important. A brief question, Deputy.
I have a brief question to the Minister in relation to the dispute. Is it true as I have heard at second hand that alternative proposals to reach settlement or at least agreement in the use of existing resources in a different way have been put to the Minister? As I understand it, the basis for agreement exists but the Minister or the Department do not want to listen to alternative proposals which might be put forward within the existing resources.
I understand the question. Deputy Hussey, and Deputy Higgins in a different way, spoke about this. It is not that we did not listen. We listened for an inordinate length of time and it was all very productive with extreme goodwill on both sides. The point of view was put across that in accordance with the provisions in the Programme for National Recovery the executives of the unions in line with their well known predisposition to serve the disadvantaged wish to see those posts given to schools which would labour under disadvantage when the altered PTR came in. That was and remains our concern. The TUI executive put forward the proposal that the same number of teachers would be evenly distributed all over the system, thereby effecting an altered downward PTR. That is the proposal referred to.