Sir, - The ASTI is not surprised at the results of the Irish Times/MRBI poll on public support for its campaign for a salary increase, published in your edition of January 30th.
This poll was conducted just days after ASTI members around the country embarked on a series of regional strike days in pursuit of their pay claim and just days before the ASTI voted to seek a Labour Court investigation in an effort to resolve the current dispute. It is inevitable that industrial action affecting members of the public will result in some negative reaction. The ASTI accepts this. It also accepts The Irish Times's assertion in its Editorial (also January 30th) that "most fair-minded people accept that teachers deserve a pay increase; most accept that teachers have fallen behind other graduate professions."
It is important to recognise that the MRBI poll shows that more people feel that the Government is to blame for the disruption to schools than the ASTI. This reflects an understanding that the ASTI undertook a campaign of industrial action reluctantly and only because for almost a year the Government refused to negotiate on its pay claim. The ASTI has been calling for a forum to deal with its pay claim for some time and the union has always made it clear that it will consider any proposals put before it. Now that the Labour Court has been assigned as the forum, the opportunity is there to resolve this difficult dispute. In an analysis of the poll, your Education Editor states that the ASTI is not willing to negotiate and has simply "banged the table" for a salary increase with no strings attached. This is clearly an unfair assumption. It is naive to expect a trade union to negotiate in the media before real negotiations actually begin.
Lastly, your Editorial says the "Labour Court can help by delivering a decent pay increase for teachers". The ASTI is also optimistic that the court will deliver a positive outcome and that further disruption to schools will be prevented. - Yours, etc.,
Don McCluskey, President, ASTI, Winetavern Street, Dublin 8.
Sir, - I spent four years in teacher-training college and am now in my tenth year teaching. Under the Buckley report proposals, the Taoiseach will receive £25,500 extra (excluding the increases due under the PPF) in one go. That is more than I earn in a whole year!
Couple this with the Government's justification of the increases by announcing that public-sector pay has fallen behind the private sector and that the current pay structure might not attract the right calibre of people - sentiments I have heard somewhere else, I'm sure - and I really find this part of the Buckley report a very bitter pill to swallow. Are the Government purposely trying to rub our noses in it or do they genuinely not value our education system? - Yours, etc., Richard Berkeley, Rosslee, Castlebar, Co Mayo.
McCreevy Versus EU
Sir, - Charlie McCreevy chose to ignore the EU reprimand on inflation in the Irish economy. This was not long after Mary Harney tried to make issue with European regulation - a la Thatcher.
Let us not forget it was EU inclusion policy for the regions which gave Ireland £8 billion to enable us to catch up with the rest of Europe. Albert Reynolds knows that. This, at a time when the right-wing financial gurus advocated retrenchment and further depression of public resources. The market has proved a useful tool in gauging public preference, but right-wing ideology has made an icon of a halfway house.
The Irish Right - McCreevy, Harney, etc. - ignore the reality that the modern Irish boom was partly built on EU social concern through regional funding. EU regulation is to be welcomed, not ridiculed. How long will McCreevy's and Harney's boasting about Irish free-market economics outlast the reduction in EU regional funding already agreed?
The Irish economy will, no doubt, roller-coast for some time on the tails of the EU-generated boom. But for how long? - Yours, etc.,
Philip Ryan, Ballycragh, Dublin 24.