John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I sought to raise this issue with the Minister a number of weeks ago. However, such is the nature of the Topical Issues debate that it has taken some time for it to come up for discussion in the House. I did not remove the matter from the agenda because, having corresponded with the Minister and the Department and spoken to those who raised it with me, I noted a level of dissatisfaction with the manner in which the individuals in question were being treated. One could argue that if they wanted to have a collective voice, they should join a trade union. However, some of them made a conscientious decision not to join a trade union and were happy not to be union members.

Their concern is the manner in which they are treated by the Department.

While I am not going to identify a particular school, I want to look at one particular person. The manner in which he has related his story to me clearly outlines the nature of the issue. He is a teacher in a designated community college under the auspices of the Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board. The board is his employer and, in accordance with the Education and Training Boards Act 2013, comes under the auspices of the Department. The school in which the gentleman in question works was founded in 1984 by a then VEC as a designated community college on a greenfield site. Since its inception, teachers at the school who have sought to join a trade union have been represented only by the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI. In the school's history there has never been a teacher who has been represented by the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, ASTI. This, apparently, is quite common in designated community colleges, even though the ASTI has negotiating rights in such colleges. In non-designated community colleges, only the TUI has negotiating rights.

The TUI has agreed to accept the Lansdowne Road public service agreement, but the ASTI has chosen to reject it. As a result, according to the Department, teachers who are members of the ASTI are subject to the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation. However, in order to apply FEMPI legislation penalties to ASTI members, the Department must be able to distinguish between them and other teachers. Even though it has the information on which teachers are members of the ASTI for payroll purposes to enable union dues to be deducted at source, under data protection legislation, it cannot use this information to identify members of the ASTI for the purpose of applying the FEMPI legislation. Accordingly, it has taken another route. It has decided to ask teachers who are members of the TUI to identify themselves to it or the education and training boards, whichever is relevant to the type of school involved, in order that the benefits of the Lansdowne Road agreement can be applied to them because the TUI has accepted the agreement. Accordingly, any teacher who does not indicate he or she is a member of the TUI will be, according to the Department, treated as not subscribing to the terms and conditions of the Lansdowne Road agreement and will, therefore, face the penalties of the FEMPI legislation. However, currently there are teachers in designated community colleges who are not and never have been members of any trade union. By the measure being taken by the Department, teachers who are not members of a trade union and, therefore, cannot indicate that they are members of the TUI will now face penalties under the FEMPI legislation. In other words, teachers in designated community colleges who conscientiously and continuously chose not to join a trade union will be subject to financial penalties as a result. That is the crux of the problem.

In the particular school every teacher is a member of the TUI, bar a handful who are non-union members who are not being afforded the opportunity because of the manner set out by the Department in Circular 0045/2016 which the Minister has indicated to me in correspondence. No matter how I look at this, there is an inequity and unfairness. Those who have chosen not to join any union are prepared to carry out all duties expected of them, but they do not have an opportunity to express this view to the Department.

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