Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I hope you will be as generous with me, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. There is a huge irony which I hope is not lost on the Members of the House. It certainly is not lost on teachers. Members of the AGSI and the GRA are the same people who will be vetting parents and others to do the work of teachers from Monday, when teachers will refuse to do work for which they are not paid. To correct some of what other Deputies have said, there is no action or strike planned by teachers on Monday. What is happening on Monday is that the Minister is refusing to pay members of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland, ASTI, for supervisory duties. If the schools close in that scenario, the Taoiseach, Government and the Minister are responsible for that closure, not the members of the ASTI. That must be made clear.

This is a sideshow. The members of the ASTI took a day's action just over a week ago for pay equality. It has been extraordinary to listen to the depths that journalists and others have gone to in an effort to get the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, to state that he believes in equality. "Equality" is a simple, popular, profound word in human society, but the Minister will not say it. He will not acknowledge that he supports pay equality. It appears that, should the Labour Court bring forward a recommendation that satisfies the gardaí and they do not go on strike, there is a deliberate attempt by the Government to isolate members of the ASTI and to paint the ASTI as a dodgy organisation. In fact, it is extremely democratic. There are 180 elected members on its executive, its president is a lay teacher rather than a trade union official and the union consults constantly with its members. Its sin, however, is that it did not vote to stay in the Lansdowne Road pay agreement. On Monday, the terms the members of the ASTI adhered to under the Croke Park agreement will no longer be adhered to because the members are outside the Lansdowne Road agreement. Is it not more irony that the State is willing to pay parents and others €36 per week, as opposed to €15 per week, to carry out the supervisory duty? The Irish Examinerreports this morning that it would cost €70 million in total, less than 1% of the education budget, to restore full pay parity for all teachers.

Does the Taoiseach support equality in pay? Is he for the restoration of full pay equality to all teachers, regardless of their trade union membership, and to nurses and gardaí? Does he believe in equality and does he wish to see it restored? If so, is there any way he can extract from the Minister's mouth that he, too, believes in it? If not, perhaps before the Taoiseach leaves office, and I see he is being celebrated on RTE, he might make the statement: "I believe in equality". Otherwise, it is the equivalent of saying to Rosa Parks, when she got on a bus all those years ago to demand equality in public transport, that she is entitled to one fifth of a seat, not the full seat.

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