Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The protest the other day was organised by the rank and file. They are ordinary teachers, mostly young, who are in this lesser-paid category. The reduction in the level of inequality the Minister referred to in rather technical language still leaves a situation whereby under the Minister's proposals, teachers, ushers or other public sector workers who came in after 2011 will over the course of their lifetime earn €100,000 less compared to those who happened to come in before 2011 and were on the old scale. That is totally unacceptable for people doing the same job. In fact, they will be working harder with all the productivity proposals such as Croke Park hours but they are on this lesser scale and will earn that much less over their lifetimes. Just as we are now discovering with nurses, who are leaving the country and will not work in our public health service when we desperately need them, there is now a substitution crisis in education for the same reason. The teachers are starting to walk because they are not accepting this pay apartheid. Will the Minister commit to getting rid of it?

See this speech in context