Vol. 80 No. 7
I have accepted from Senator West notice to raise the following matter:
The problems caused by the decision of the Department of Education to exclude candidates from Northern Ireland for consideration for posts as Primary Teachers in this country in the coming year.
I am very pleased that this matter has been accepted for the adjournment debate. In a sense it follows on, although in a different vein, from the discussion we had today because it involves our relationships with Northern Ireland. This is one of the things I feel most strongly about. If I am correct, the applicants for posts in primary schools in the Republic in the coming year from outside the Republic will not be considered. Candidates who have taken their educational qualifications outside the Republic and who do not have the requirements in the Gaelic language, are requested to sit an Irish qualifying examination if they wish to become fully fledged teachers in primary schools in the Republic. The administrative machinery for carrying out the decision of the Department is that no qualifying examination in Irish will be held in the coming year.
There are reasons for this. The Department has a problem and there is no point in trying to run away from it. The forecast for the primary school teacher situation in the coming year is that there will be roughly 800 vacancies in the Republic through wastage, and through the normal process, and about 1,000 applicants coming through our training colleges in the Republic. The Department has decided to effectively exclude applicants from outside the Republic by not holding the qualifying examination in Irish. That is all very fine.
Some of my Northern constituents raised this problem. It was the first I knew about it. They point out that it effectively discriminates against people from Northern Ireland who wish to take posts in the Republic in the coming year. I could see a reason for this decision by the Department vis-á-vis any other part of the world. Really when we narrow it down it only involves Britain and Northern Ireland. I could see a reason for it in a global sense but if either the Government, the Opposition, any of our politicians or the Department of Education are serious in fostering our relationship with Northern Ireland, then some exclusion must be made for teachers training in Northern Ireland.
We have talked at great length in the debate on the Extradition Bill about our special relationship with Northern Ireland. I know it is the wish of all parties and of all politicians—to establish a special relationship with Northern Ireland. Whatever the administrative difficulties involved, when one takes a decision such as that made by the Department of Education vis-a-vis teachers applying for posts in primary schools, it must exclude Northern Ireland. There must be a let out for those people, otherwise we might as well say that we do not give a hoot about the Northern Ireland situation. If we do not strive in every way to break down administrative barriers, to get over the hurdles, to make a special case for our fellow Irishmen in the North, then we may as well give up all this talk about Extradition Bills, about unity and all these emotive terms and phrases and these ways of looking at the special problems in the North and so on. If we do not make the simple administrative distinction between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, the rest is all eye wash and nonsense.
It seems strange to me, particularly as a member of the Protestant community in the South, that we are not more sensitive to Northern opinion. I do not just mean to Protestant opinion in the North. This decision affects everyone right across the board. I tried to make a telephone call today to Belfast. There was no Northern Telephone Directory in Leinster House. One of the girls I asked about this said that perhaps the number for Queens University is in the country section of the Republic's telephone directory. This, in a way, illustrates the whole situation.
I am not trying to say that the Department have not got a problem here. Of course they have. There are problems in education right across the board and I sympathise with the Minister and the Department in their efforts to solve these problems. But, if we do not at every step and turn make special concessions to the North vis-a;-vis Britain then we may as well not be in the game of trying to set up a special relationship with Northern Ireland. When an administration is made which seriously affects Northern people and treats them in the same way as the citizens in the mainland of England, Scotland and Wales, then something has to be done. I hope the Minister will be able to say in reply to this short Adjournment Debate that he will hold a special qualifying examination for those currently in Northern Ireland who wish to apply for posts here. If he does not, it shows that he and his Department do not really make any distinction. If that is the attitude, we should make it absolutely clear to the Northern people that we are not really interested in setting up this special relationship which will be the only way we can solve the problems in this island. It is not a question of unity, it is a question of a special relationship and is the foundation to the solution of the problems in this island. It does not involve the people on the mainland of Britain. Unless we can say that in every administrative decision, in every aspect of our government and in every problem we look at, we make special consideration for those in Northern Ireland, then we should make it clear, and the Northern people will know exactly where they stand.
There is a problem. The forecast leaves a shortfall of 200 if it is correct. If the figures I gave of 800 vacancies, and 1,000 home-based applicants are right, then there is a shortfall of 200. There are other people who might merit consideration, people who may have qualified in the North, who are in Britain and who wish to come back to this country. The Department should clearly set out the fact by an advertisement in the newspapers saying they are holding a special qualifying examination in Irish for applicants for primary posts in the Republic who are currently teaching in Northern Ireland and who have not taken this qualification, people who wish to come and teach here from the North. If it magnifies our problem then this is the price we have to pay. If we are ever going to work together with the North our problems will not diminish, rather the opposite.
I should like to go back to my constituents after this debate this evening, for they were the people who raised this problem in the first place—I was not aware of it myself—and tell them that this problem has been raised, that we have taken a generous attitude and that we have decided that, as far as we in the South are concerned, northern applicants will be considered and given the same opportunities vis-á-vis these poss as the people here. If I cannot do his it is tanamount to saying that, as far as this sphere of Government is concerned, we do not care about the North and as far as the special relationship is concerned we might as well whistle in the wind.
I am grateful to Senator West both for bringing up this subject and for giving me the opportunity to saying a few words on it. Anybody who attended, as I did, some of the sessions of the annual congress of the Irish National Teachers Organisation would have been left under no illusion about the depth of feeling that exists within the teachers' organisation itself about the problem which has been raised here tonight. It may sound strange to have the members of a trade union objecting to an administrative ruling which, if it were removed, would effectively worsen the employment position of their members or of people they might expect to join their trade union in the year or two ahead, but there was no doubting the genuineness of this concern and, indeed, the passion with which it was expressed.
A couple of points which were made at that particular congress are worth repeating here for the benefit of the House and for the information of the Minister who, I am sure, is aware of many of them already. One of the important points is that this input, if I may call it that, of teachers from Northern Ireland into the educational system of the Republic has been especially noticeable in the sphere of special education. This is an area which we are developing obviously as fast as we can. It is an area where particularly high levels of training and skill are required, levels of training and skill which are superlatively present among teachers trained in Northern Ireland. For various reasons they have tended to find themselves in the special schools in this part of the country; one might almost go so far as to say that without them special education in this country at the primary school level would be in a very much worse case than it is today.
The second relevant point I should like to make is to draw attention to the social and personal aspects of this administrative decision. We have been hearing over the past few days something of the conditions which exist in Northern Ireland at the moment. There are many people who were born and bred and trained as teachers in Northern Ireland and who love Northern Ireland and who feel more at home there, perhaps, than anywhere else but who cannot at this stage endure the continual war of nerves, the continual harassment, the continual uncertainty, the continual physical danger under which so many of them live. It is for reasons like this —and these are good reasons—that many of these people have decided in the past and, presumably, will decide in the future for as long as the dreadful conditions continue to obtain up there—that the option which has always been open to them to some extent of acquiring employment in the other half of what they would consider to be their country should remain open to them.
We have been talking in the last couple of hours in the debate on the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill about not giving a refuge to criminals from the North of Ireland. If we believe that we should not give refuge to these criminals how much more should we insist on the right of extending a refuge to the innocent from Northern Ireland, not only to the innocent from Northern Ireland but to a special category of innocent people from Northern Ireland, people who have at least as much to contribute to us as we can ever contribute to them or give to them?
I would add my voice to Senator West's plea that in some respects and wherever possible our treatment of Northern Ireland and its inhabitants of whatever persuasion should be distinguished legally and administratively from our treatment of inhabitants of the other parts of the British Isles. I appreciate the Minister's problem. It is his duty clearly to provide employment for the teachers who have been trained in this part of the country and whose training has been paid for by the taxpayers in this part of the country. He also has another duty. This is to do whatever he can, especially in the primary area, to improve the quality of the educational service which he is making available. The reasons for this are quite obvious. A distinguished and elderly relative of mine once sent a submission to the then Committee on Higher Education when it was sitting in which he traced all the faults of the system down to inadequacy in primary education. He may have been over-stating the case, but it can very well be argued that if you want to struggle, however fitfully, towards equality of opportunity in education, towards equality of educational expenditure, the obvious place to start is in primary education.
I realise that there is a problem of money, but the fundamental importance of primary education and, therefore, the fundamental importance of this matter on the Adjournment, is that this is the area through which the huge majority, the vast majority, of our citizens as children actually go, the only one area, one might say, in which they are all present to a man and, therefore, this is the area in which there is most justification for spending money, the area in which there is most justification for making a fuss. The Minister may or may not be aware of something which I have formulated—although not in public before—called Horgan's First Law of Educational Controversy. It states that the intensity of educational controversy varies in inverse ratio to the number of people engaged in the educational sector about which that controversy is taking place. In other words, for some odd reason we seem to have ten times as much controversy about university education, which has the smallest proportion of the full-time educational sector at present, and the smallest degree of controversy about primary education which is the one sector in which everybody has a stake. It has always been part of my belief as a journalist and as a parliamentarian that this peculiar set of relationships should be reversed, and I hope the Minister would agree with me in it.
As a final plea to the Minister I would ask him to reconsider his decision to hold a qualifying examination. It may not guarantee these people from the North of Ireland a job this year, but when the Minister is doing what he can about the student teacher ratio, when the gates are open again and he has more flexibility, when he has managed to extract more money from the ogre in Merrion Street, then these teachers will be qualified to come down and take their part and do their job and I am quite certain they will do it with a heart and a half.
I would like to add my voice to that of Senator West and Senator Horgan in making a plea with regard to those trained in Northern Ireland. I do it for the reason that never in the history of the Department of Education was a more glorious opportunity presented to do something realistic about the large class situation which is the greatest single flaw in our educational system. By using the teachers already in service, by granting them extensions, by employing all those who leave the training colleges and by availing of the services of those trained in Northern Ireland I think the Minister could do a tremendous job to wipe out for all time this great flaw which exists in the educational system, namely the large class situation. One may say that this costs money, but if one looks at primary education basically one must realise that unless you have a solid foundation there the entire edifice is tottering. One must start with primary education and have a tremendous input of finance there. By availing himself of the opportunity which presents itself at this hour, of granting extensions to those already in service and those about to leave service, by employing all those leaving training college—and this year we have the greatest output in the history of the training colleges in the Republic— and by also giving an opportunity to those trained in the UK with particular reference to Northern Ireland, I think the Minister could correct the large class situation for all time.
The question raised by way of motion on the adjournment relates to the decision to suspend for a period of one year the special examination which enables teachers trained in recognised colleges of education in Great Britain and Northern Ireland to qualify as national teachers under our system. Let us avoid any confusion about this. The temporary closing of this avenue of recruitment does not affect candidates in Northern Ireland only; it affects in considerably greater numbers people who are born in and whose homes are in this area of our island, the Republic. To illustrate this, let me quote figures in respect of the last school year which ended on the 30th June, 1974. In that year 167 applicants took the special test in oral Irish. Eighteen of those were trained in Northern Ireland; 149 were trained in Great Britain. In all, 139 of these applicants qualified as national teachers, 12 of them having been trained in Northern Ireland. Ninety-seven of those qualified subsequently took up appointments in national schools, eight of them being Northern Ireland trainees.
Since applicant teachers are not required to give particulars as to their place of birth I cannot give precise information as to the number of those trained in Britain who are natives of Northern Ireland, but it is certainly not very big. The great majority of British trainees are, without doubt, natives of this part of the country. Even if it were practicable—and it is not—to relax the suspension in such a way that it would apply—it would not apply to teachers from Northern Ireland—to do so would, in fact discriminate against young men and women who are born in the Republic and whose homes are here. I doubt if any Member of the House would favour such a course. What is being asked then is, in effect, that this avenue of recruitment of teachers for our primary schools remain open in the current year as in previous years.
Let me explain the reason why the temporary closure became necessary. The number of trainee teachers accepted in our training colleges in 1973— the last group whose training period is only two years—is far higher than ever before and on 1st July this year, the beginning of the school year, there will be some 1,100 newly-trained teachers available. With a normal annual figure of 640 posts arising through retirals, wastage and increased enrolments the prospect existed of some 460 of these young teachers being without opportunities of employment in the profession for which they had been prepared if special steps were not taken to avoid this.
It is easy to say, of course, that this problem could be solved by reducing the pupil-teacher ratio and appointing additional special teachers for remedial and other work. No one recognises more clearly that I do the desirability of such improvements in our education system at primary level and no one is more anxious than I am to achieve such improvements. But one must be realistic; one must acknowledge cold, economic facts in an era when economic crisis is threatening all countries. It simply is not possible in present circumstances to reduce further this year the pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools or to create additional teaching posts for remedial or other special work.
Twice since I have become Minister I have improved the pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools and I have also added, on each occasion, to the number of appointments of remedial teachers. If, this year, we have to forego improvements in this direction it is not for lack of will on my part but that grave financial considerations and the heavy demands from other parts of the educational system make this inevitable.
How then do we ensure that newly-trained teachers will, from the commencement of the coming school year, have opportunities of employment? There will be 640 vacancies which I have mentioned arising in the normal way. There will, in addition, be some 240 posts which are at present filled by unqualified persons because qualified and trained teachers were not available to fill them. There will be posts which in former years would be filled by teachers who had reached retiring age and who had been, as a concession, allowed to continue in the service for one, two or three years. I regret that the withdrawal of this concession will give rise to disappointment in many instances and even to a degree of hardship in some cases. But the choice was between the continuance of a concession on the one hand and the avoidance of a considerable degree of unemployment on the other.
To return to the matter before the House, if recruitment of teachers trained in Britain and Northern Ireland were to be continued in the present year we should, on the basic of the statistics I have already given, be increasing by some 140, probably more, the pool of newly-trained teachers available this year. That is to say we should be deliberately creating a situation in which a fairly large number of teachers would be facing unemployment. That I am not prepared to do. I feel that circumstances being as they are, my first responsibility in this matter is to ensure that there are job opportunities for those who complete their training as teachers in colleges under my Department.
Might I remind the Seanad that teachers trained in Northern Ireland or in Britain are eligible for employment in Northern Ireland or in Britain, while teachers trained in the Republic are not at present eligible for employment either in Northern Ireland or in Britain? If they do not get employment here they will be unemployed. Might I emphasise that this measure—hopefully—is a purely temporary one for one year only but one year's unemployment is a long period for the individual concerned. It is only fair that teachers who have only the schools in this part of the country as their sole avenue of entry to the profession should be given that opportunity of entering the profession.
I do not think any Members of the Seanad would wish me to follow the line of argument that in taking this step I was in any way unappreciative of the situation in Northern Ireland. I refuse the invitation to follow that track. My decision is related purely to my responsibility, as Minister for Education, to the people in the training colleges under my jurisdiction in this part of the country. There are no other considerations involved and I refuse to follow any suggestion or to go on any emotive line in relation to the North of Ireland. It has nothing to do with my decision, which is related purely to employment opportunities for the graduates who are coming out this year.
I will simply report to my Northern constituents that, as far as primary teaching goes, the Minister has closed the gate to them.
The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 30th April, 1975.
