I move:—
That the Secondary Teachers' Superannuation (Amendment) Scheme, 1954, made by the Minister for Education, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, be confirmed.
Secondary Teachers' Superannuation (Amendment) Scheme, 1954—Motion.
Legislation by reference has got a bad name and the documents usually cause very great irritation. Superannuation schemes, at any rate, are a supreme example of that particular type of irriation and may not be easily understood at first glance. The document before the House contains a few very simple ideas. It arises out of two things: (1) the decision by the Government in August, 1952, to give ex gratia payments to certain teachers who had gone on pension before 1st January, 1950, and (2) some matters relating to the superannuation scheme for secondary teachers which were settled by conciliation machinery in March, 1952.
Paragraphs 5 and 6 deal with the ex gratia payments. From 1st January, 1950, secondary and primary teachers became entitled to a gratuity on retirement. Teachers who retired before 1st January, 1950, did not come under any scheme that had a gratuity payment, and, in August, 1952, the Government decided that an ex gratia payment would be made to teachers who had not the benefit of the scheme that came into operation from January, 1950. The payments have already been made to the primary teachers, but the payments for gratuity and superannuation to secondary teachers come from a superannuation fund and until there was statutory authority for paying any moneys out of the fund, the payments could not be made. The payments to the national teachers were paid, I think, in three lots, but, in view of the time that has elapsed since it was decided to make this payment, it is proposed that the payment of gratuity to the secondary teachers will be paid in one sum and I hope, getting this scheme through the Seanad to-night, to be in a position to make the payments within the next week or so.
It is proposed that secondary teachers who were on pension on 1st January, 1950, will get a gratuity based upon their pensionable salary, the salary upon which their pension was based, and the payment that will be made to them will be one-thirtieth for each year of service in respect of the years from 1st January, 1935, to the 31st December, 1949, and further, in respect of any service from 1st January, 1905, to 31st December, 1934, at the rate of one-hundredth for each year of service.
In planning the scheme of payment of gratuity, cognisance had to be taken of the general pattern of the superannuation scheme and the gratuity scheme for secondary teachers, and, in accordance with that pattern, which is the pattern of a superannuation scheme which is based on contributions, for the period from January, 1935, to December, 1949, there will be a deduction of 1 per cent. of the amount payable.
The secondary scheme was not actually decided until about July, 1950, and a certain number of people may have retired between January and July, 1950, who got a gratuity under the current superannuation scheme. If by any chance the ex gratia payment now proposed in connection with this scheme would have been greater than the gratuity they got in going out between January, 1950, and July, 1950, the difference will be made up to them.
The rest of the provisions arise out of conciliation arrangements made in March, 1952, and one of the principle decisions then taken was that the salary upon which the pension would be based, instead of as it was before March, 1952, the average of the salaries paid for the three years before retirement will be the salary at the date of retirement. Paragraph 7, therefore, provides that anybody who retired after 12th March, 1952, will have his pension and retiring gratuity based upon the salary he enjoyed in the year before retiring, and not on the average of the three years before, and any payments that have to be made to people who died in the meantime will be paid to their legal representatives. All the scheme is changed permanently for those who are at present teachers.
Paragraphs 9 and 10 make provision that if a teacher who is pensionable passes to employment which is also pensionable in one particular period of service, he will not be regarded as pensionable under both schemes. The period will come in for pension or gratuity purposes only under whatever scheme is the appropriate scheme for it.
Paragraph II recognises certain service in the Defence Forces as service for pension and gratuity purposes.
When the 1951 amending scheme was introduced—the 1951 amending scheme which was, in respect of some minor matters, amended in 1952—it added to the general pension scheme retirement gratuities, marriage gratuities for women who retired for marriage purposes and disablement gratuities. As a result of the introduction of these additional benefits into the superannuation scheme, there was an inducement to teachers who had given service either to come into the scheme, or, if they had come into the scheme after they had spent some years in the teaching service, to antedate their service for pension purposes back either to the begining of their service or, at any rate, to some date in the past.
The scheme provided that arrears of contribution would be payable in order to allow them to have some of their past service included in the scheme. Senators will be interested to know that, as a result of the additional benefits and of the facilities given, by the payment of arrears of contribution, for teachers to come in, whereas there were only about 500 teachers in the superannuation scheme in 1951, there are now about 2,000. A certain period was arranged over which they could pay their arrears of contribution. It was fixed at something like five years. Paragraph 12 proposes to extend the period of payment from five to ten years because it was found in certain cases that there was a certain amount of hardship in requiring that all the arrears would be paid up inside five years.
Paragraph 15 makes a concession. The original scheme provided that when a woman retired for marriage and got a marriage gratuity, the marriage had to take place inside three months from retiring. This not only extends that period to four months, but opens the door a little more and gives the Minister power in special circumstances to decide that the question of time need not necessarily arise at all.
Paragraph 16 makes provision for service before 1929 which is not contracted for in any way by any kind of contribution. Teachers in reckoning their time of service for pension can count for their lump sum a period before 1929 at the rate of one-hundredth of their pensionable salary for each year. These are the main provisions, and they are in the language of the Statutory Order. That is what the effect of the Order is.
I think most of the provisions in this motion are based on agreed recommendations and are acceptable to the secondary teachers. There is just one point that I should like the Minister to consider. It concerns paragraph 5 of the amendment and it is briefly this: the secondary teachers' scheme has been a contributory one since 1929, and the members are now eligible for ex gratia payments. They paid contributions for the five-year period from 1929 to 1934. Secondly, the adoption of the year 1934 is a point of demarcation. It means that they do not benefit at the full rate for those five years which were years of great hardship for many teachers. Could they not be given a further five years, in addition, at the full gratuity rate? That is the only point that I should like the Minister to consider in relation to the motion.
This scheme follows, in the main, on the lines of the scheme adopted in the case of the national teachers, and, as such is subject to the same critism and the same disabilities. I might mention that national teachers, unlike civil servants and other public servants, up to the year 1950 got a pension without any lump sum. As Senators know there was an agitation for many years in respect to their pensions—that they should be treated in the same manner as public servants under the local authorities and as civil servants are treated. Eventually following the report of the Roe Commission about 1950 the concession was granted that a lump sum, in addition to the pension at the rate of half salary, would be given to teachers on retirement; but for some reason that I, personally, could never understand this provision was to apply only to those who were in the service in 1950. Those who retired on the 31st December got no gratuity of any kind whatever although credit was given to the existing teachers for their years of service prior to 1950. Those who retired in 1949, as I say, got no gratuity although they had served during all those years. It was just luck, in the case of the others, that the Act came into operation on that particular date. An aggitation was naturally carried on to have that matter put right, and in 1952, as the Minister has pointed out an ex gratia payment was made, but not at all to the extent required to meet the case of the teachers who retired before 1950. It was much smaller grant—I forget the details of it—than what a teacher would have received if he had got his gratuity, but worse than that it was paid in three annual instalments. Indeed some of the poor pensioners who had retired for many years before 1950 had gone to their eternal reward long before the second or the third instalment was paid.
The Minister is now dealing with secondary teachers on the same basis. I object, of course, to that procedure being followed because I do not think it is fair to the secondary teachers any more than it was fair to the national teachers. I hope that in the near future the Minister will look into this question again and see whether those who retired before the 1st January should not continue to suffer from the disabilities to which they have been subjected. After all, they are a rapidly diminishing number. The cost would not be very much and would gradually disappear. I hope that the Minister and the Government will look into the matter both in the case of the national teachers and the secondary teachers.
I was surprised to hear Senator McHugh say that the scheme now before us was acceptable to the secondary teachers. It has the same disabilities as the one which applies to the national teachers, and I am surprised that the secondary teachers have agreed to it. I trust that, in the case of both bodies of teachers, the disabilities which are there will be removed in the near future.
Without going into the details of the scheme, there is this to be said. Any scheme at all of pensions for secondary teachers is a substantial improvement. Every Minister for Education inherits a great deal of history, and schemes of pensions particularly, become very complicated. The points which Senator O'Connell made with regard to dates are always points of difference between teachers' organisations and the Minister for Education. It should be remembered that it was, I think, the present Minister when he was Minister for Education in the first inter-Party Government who introduced the idea of the gratuity and the payment of a gratuity, and it is perhaps asking the Minister too much to ask him to solve at one stroke all the problems which have accumulated around this question of pensions through the various periods of history.
There is one other point about it. The Minister for Education may consider this matter. As a Minister for Education, I gave some consideration to matters of this kind myself, but, looming in the background, there is always the Minister for Finance, and the Minister for Finance rarely regards teachers in exactly the same terms, or sees them through the same spectacles, as the Minister for Education sees them, so that while the Minister for Education may give consideration and may do his best, he is not, in the nature of things—whatever Government is in office—able to accomplish everything which he wants to accomplish.
I think it is fair to say that a great deal has been done. That this scheme is not perfect is, of course, correct. This question of where you mark the line of demarcation, whether you make it 1940, 1950, or 1952, is always a bone of contention in schemes of arbitration. This scheme, presumably, will improve things until we get the perfect scheme.
In reply to Senator McHugh I would like to say that it is not correct to state that the teachers between 1929 and 1934 paid 1 per cent. Up to the time of the 1951 scheme there was no gratuity at all. There was no 1 per cent. deductable in respect of gratuities, and therefore, there is no overlapping. This is just part of the structure of the contributory scheme and contributory system that is here.
In regard to Senator O'Connell's points, I am afraid that my difficulty in the Department of Education is that my face is turned very much to the future, and if it would not turn, naturally, that way it is being forced by faces being twisted towards all the problems that are looming ahead. Any one who was in on the discussions that took place when the scheme that came into operation from the 1st January was introduced must be fully aware of the difficulties that faced anyone moulding a scheme at that time.
It would have given me great satisfaction if I had been able to deal with the teachers who had gone out on pension at that time. It did give me a certain amount of satisfaction that my immediate predecessor, Deputy Moylan was able to get a certain amount of money to apply to the distresses and the difficulties of the teachers who had gone out that time. What is being done now in relation to secondary teachers is what was done with regard to national teachers, that is national teachers who had gone out before the 1st January. I am not able to add anything more that would bring immediate comfort to Senator O'Connell, but I appreciate the points which he has made. I am glad that the secondary teachers are able to get something analogous to what the pre-1950 national teachers got.
Question put and agreed to.