Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Notwithstanding the crumbs from his table for new entrant teachers, the Minister seems pretty nonplussed by this issue. He seems to accept that he will have a two-tier workforce in the education system and that a variety of allowances - I have not seen the individual figures - will be taken from support for Gaeilge and the Gaeltacht. The Minister needs to reconsider that. I am alarmed by the fact that he seems terribly laid back about this.

The Minister and the Government use the Croke Park agreement most cynically. I understand why many public servants see the agreement as the last line of defence. Government after Government has hammered them and there has been a haemorrhaging from the public service. I understand their attachment to the agreement. What I cannot stomach is the Government using the Croke Park agreement, on the one hand as an excuse to hammer new entrants into the civil and public service and, on the other, as a shield to protect itself from taking the tough decision to deal with the issue of high pay. We would not have to have this conversation about new entrant teachers or others in the public service who are on modest levels of pay if the Minister and the Cabinet had the bottle, the cop-on and the decency to deal with the issue of very high pay in the upper echelons of the public service. That is the fair thing to do. It is also the thing to which the public would most enthusiastically respond. What we want is fairness. It is not fair to target new entrants and new teachers in this manner.

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