Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will refer to the issues of pay rates for new entrant teachers and big business funding for third level institutions. I will start with the latter.

In his speech to the Dáil on budget day, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, stated that "Ensuring education remains the linchpin of our economic success requires an intensified focus on a sustainable long-term model for higher and further education". He went on to state:

The Minister for Education and Skills and I are, therefore, initiating a consultation process on the design and operation of an Exchequer-employer investment mechanism to operate from 2018 onwards. This is also intended to drive continued reform, quality and performance across the sector, in line with the action plan for education. I expect this proposal to be brought to the Government by the middle of next year, following the conclusion of consultation.

I believe that these are key sentences in the Budget Statement made by the Minister and they have not, to date, been given sufficient attention either by the Dáil or by the media. The Minister clearly seems to be opening the door here for an increased level of private sector investment in the third level sector. This is in line with neoliberal trends in other countries, trends which are undermining the value of third level education as we have known it.

In the journal Academic Matters, in a piece about private sector investment in third level education in Canada, Dr. Jamie Brownlee wrote recently that "once underfunding has undermined the integrity and functionality of a public system, corporations and market-oriented bureaucrats are invited to come in and reinvigorate these 'failing' institutions through restructuring or privatization". Dr. Brownlee outlines how private sector investment in the Canadian third level sector has over time boosted the commercialisation of research, increased contract faculty working, resulted in increased co-ordination of university programmes and labour market needs to the severe detriment of arts based courses, resulted in the appointment of management consultant company representatives to the boards of universities and led to ever higher tuition fees with students being seen increasingly as customers.

In the United States, two individuals, brothers Charles and David Koch, donated $23.4 million to colleges and universities in 2014. Of course, there were strings attached. These strings included control over the curriculum and the right to obtain personal information about students. Control over curriculum included the promotion of what were described as "deregulatory government policies". In Britain, the Conservative Government is turning the higher education system into a competitive market-driven system. In four years' time, private providers will get the power to award degrees. For-profit business will have the power to use the title "university", somewhat like the Trump University in the United States. Writing in the Financial Times, Mr. Martin Wolf recently commented that the British Government proposes to turn them into the equivalent of purveyors of baked beans. No doubt the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will say that cannot or will not happen here, but that is what happens when big business gets a strong grip on third level. It would be naive to think otherwise. It would be naive to think that Ireland would take the same road as Canada, the US and Britain but end up at a different destination. There needs to be far more debate about the Minister's proposal and resistance to it should not be delayed until 2018.

The Labour Party motion states that it welcomes "the funding of agreements reached with trade unions regarding pay levels for new entrant teachers". The Labour Party used to support the principle of equal pay for equal work. Why is the Labour Party, and Fianna Fáil, now supporting a deal between Government and some trade union leaders which keeps in place unequal pay for equal work? According to the president of the largest secondary teachers union in the State, the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland, Mr. Ed Byrne, this morning, the agreement referred to in the motion will mean that a secondary teacher who joined the profession between 2011 and 2016 will earn €2,775 less next year doing exactly the same work as someone who joined the profession before 2011 with the same number of years on the clock. Would the Labour Party support pay discrimination on the grounds of race, gender or sexual orientation? If not, why then support it on the grounds of what year one joins a profession, in most cases, effectively, on the grounds of age? No doubt the reply will be that partial restoration is a step in the right direction, but one would not justify a mere partial bridging of a gap between workers with different skin colour. Why then justify it in this case? Equal pay for equal work is a principle and cannot be subdivided.

Perhaps the Labour Party might argue that the example given above would be illegal but that this case is actually legal. So what? Votes for women was once illegal. The right to strike was once illegal, and still is for gardaí. Free speech was once illegal. Unjust rules and laws were fought and overturned by struggles from below. Never were they changed, by the way, by the establishment imposing fair play. Always they were won as a result of an organised fight against that same establishment.

The ASTI is to be congratulated for deciding to fight for the basic trade union principle of equal pay for equal work. We will be more than happy to back them in their strike every inch of the way.

See this speech in context