I formally move:—
That the National School Teachers' Superannuation (Amendment) Scheme, 1953, made by the Minister for Education, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, be confirmed.
National School Teachers' Superannuation (Amendment) Scheme, 1953.
This national teachers' superannuation scheme has a number of clauses, only two of which are really important. Senators will remember that there was a conciliation and arbitration scheme on trial for a year. It is necessary to give the agreements reached between the two parties at that scheme the force of law. One matter that arose was the question of payment of pension. Up to now, the retiring pension of a teacher was payable on the average salary paid to him for his last three years of service. Section 11 proposes that his pension will be based on the salary of his last year of service—which gives a certain advantage to the teacher.
The other clause deals with the payment of a gratuity to teachers who retired before 1950. As a result of the negotiations at conciliation level and also, possibly, as a result of the findings of the Roe Commission, for the first time, in 1951, a lump sum was made payable to national teachers. That, like the advance in pay given then only applied to teachers who were actually in the service. There was a certain, shall I say, difficulty in the fact that those who retired just previous to the bringing in of this proposal felt that they had a very definite grievance. In order to mitigate the feelings that had been aroused, it has been decided to pay a gratuity to those teachers who had retired before the new scheme came into operation. This scheme proposes to give it statutory effect so as to allow the payment.
One of the other items in the scheme is a book-keeping arrangement which makes a certain pension fund responsible for certain payments. There is nothing to it. Another allows the bringing in of certain teachers to benefits who were previously excluded. There are others, and it seems to me, without knowing what is in the mind of the parliamentary draftsman, that they are drafted to meet a contingency that can never in any circumstances arise.
This scheme should be welcomed. Teachers of all classes, primary, secondary, vocational and university, are not well paid and are, as a general rule poorly pensioned. There have been some improvements for some years past and the Minister's predecessor was successful in making certain improvements, particularly that in relation to the payment of a gratuity. I think the Minister is to be congratulated on having remedied a difficulty whereby certain people who came out on a particular date felt they had a grievance. The payment of a gratuity to national teachers on their retirement is a very substantial step forward.
Teachers generally are rather criticised for talking too much about their pay and their pensions, but when one remembers that more than 90 per cent. of our school-going population get all their education in the primary schools, there can be no possibility of begrudging to the teachers in the primary schools reasonable salaries and pensions. While there must be an allowance made for nobility of intention and for vocations, it is very difficult in a competitive world to get children properly educated if the people who have to do the work are not as well paid as people in comparable employment. We should be grateful to the Minister and should congratulate him on this step forward. As he said, this is based upon the arbitration proceedings and the arbitration scheme which his predecessor succeeded in putting into operation.
For myself, I always feel sympathy for a Minister for Education who has to cope with the Minister for Finance. It does not matter what Government is in office—the Minister for Education has always great difficulty, and when he succeeds in wringing from the Minister for Finance even small concessions, he is to be congratulated and we should be grateful to him.
I welcome this amendment of the teachers' superannuation scheme and I congratulate the Minister, not only on the very generous way in which he has met the representations made to him on behalf of the national teachers but on having succeeded in securing from the Minister for Finance his consent to the provision of the moneys necessary to implement this scheme. Ministers for Education in the past have been very well-disposed towards the teachers, but they always found the Department of Finance a stumbling block in the way of securing redress. That is not so now and I must say that the national teachers are singularly fortunate in having Ministers of the type of the present Minister and his predesessor, Deputy General Mulcahy, both of whom went out of their way to familiarise themselves with the prevailing grievances—and there were many— grievances which they, in their time, either removed or eased. This scheme will be received with joy by many, amongst them myself, who hope to live long enough to enjoy it. I speak not only for myself but for many of my kind, for the older teachers and the younger ones, too, who can look forward to a pension scheme which, if not the best, is one of the best in existence in the State.
I should like very briefly to associate myself with what has been said in support of the Minister's action. As a teacher, I feel every sympathy with the teachers in their approach towards pension age without very much to look forward to. Senator Hayes mentioned the allowance made for a vocation in the teacher's profession. I have always been struck by the argument that, because a person has a vocation for teaching or nursing or some such work, he or she ought to be prepared to carry on that work for much less than the ordinary market value of such services in other spheres. I have never been able to see the force of that and I can say quite frankly that, while a vocation is all right at the beginning when one starts his profession, the shine very soon wears off as one goes on in that profession with a salary much less than one's neighbours and others of one's community in their professions. I read last week a very striking book called Chalk in My Hair by a teacher who was apparently afraid to put his name to it and who called himself “Balaam”. Presumably, the other half, the Ass, was the pupils. He put the case very forcibly and said it should be read by all teachers and all governors of schools and, he might have added, by all Ministers for Education.
And Finance.
I assume the Seanad is satisfied and I am grateful for the expedition with which Senators have dealt with this matter.
Question put and agreed to.