Sir, – It is regrettable that much of the discourse on the public service (Croke Park) agreement is poorly informed and that some within the commentariat seem intent on keeping it so. The facts may not suit those who routinely seek to denigrate public servants and the unions that represent them. However, reasonable people will agree that the facts are important.
The members of the TUI, teachers and lecturers, do not especially like the Croke Park agreement but nonetheless signed up to it in good faith. We expected and continue to expect that the Government will, for its part, also act in good faith. In the schools and colleges where our members work a reduced number of teachers and lecturers is providing a greatly increased numbers of students with a high quality public education service. The Croke Park agreement is delivering significant savings to the State arising from increased productivity by our members in an environment starved of resources. An additional 900,000 hours annually are being delivered by second-level teachers alone. All too often the fact that the Croke Park deal is delivering industrial peace is also wilfully ignored.
The increments and allowances paid to teachers are an intrinsic, indivisible part of core pay. The Croke Park agreement unequivocally guarantees that there will be no further reductions – beyond the very steep reductions already imposed – in the pay of serving public servants in the lifetime of the agreement. Withdrawing or cutting the increments and allowances would therefore be a breach of the agreement and would represent an act of bad faith by Government.
The imposition of the so-called “pension levy” on public servants and the public service pay cut reduced the take-home pay of serving teachers by up to 20 per cent. There has also been a sustained assault on the pay of new entrants to the public service and, most especially, on new entrants to teaching, since 2011. Add to this mix the fact that around 30 per cent of second-level teachers do not have fulltime jobs but instead are struggling to get by on part time hours and insecure contracts and the myth about public servants being cosseted is exposed as precisely that, a myth.
As public servants, taxpayers and citizens, teachers and lecturers are suffering the reductions in living standards that afflict our society; are working ever harder to ensure that our young people get an education of the highest quality; are active in helping their communities to meet the demands of the time; and are demonstrably part of the common struggle in these times of recession. – Yours, etc,