Madam, – I was surprised to see The Irish Timespublishing an article by a former key Progressive Democrat, lecturing the unions on what to do (Stephen O'Byrnes, Opinion, December 31st). Surprised, because it was the PDs' philosophy of low taxes and spend now, pay later that helped drive us into this economic quagmire and thus, to be lectured by a founding member is difficult to take as a vilified public servant. Putting his politics aside, as a secondary teacher I was not surprised to see the same red herrings and myths propagated about teachers again.
His concentration on the amount of uncertified sick leave teachers were previously allowed (a real red herring if ever there was one), ignored the fact that the average teacher takes only about four days a year – something acknowledged by the Minister of Education, who had previously exaggerated the figures.
He also took out the old chestnut of the amount of time we spend in work. He incorrectly states “working hours for teachers are among the lowest in the OECD”. It is true the Irish school year is quite short, but he ignores the fact that Irish secondary teachers’ contact hours (735 on average) are higher than the OECD average of 653 for lower secondary and 709 for upper secondary.
His also seems to take issue with the fact that 52 per cent of Irish teachers have a management post. While I would query that figure, I can point out that the majority of secondary teachers who have a management post get less than €3,500 (before tax) and in most cases work extremely hard for this money. Now, given the embargo on replacing these posts, many teachers are being asked to fill in for free. Of course, many teachers have always carried out many management type duties for no remuneration – running games and sitting on boards of management to name but functions.
We do need debate about the type of public service we want in this nation, but we should start by hearing from actual public servants and service users, rather than proponents of a failed political philosophy whose facts are doubtful. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I refer to Stephen O’Byrnes’ article (Opinion, December 31st) citing the need for social solidarity and leadership. The recent decision of the Government to reverse the paycut for senior civil servants demonstrates the type of social solidarity and leadership that we have in this country – none. Let us hope that in the next general election, the Irish electorate demonstrate that they can learn from their mistakes by not returning the current Government into power. – Yours, etc,