Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 11, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following:“Equal pay for new entrants

11.The Minister shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before the Oireachtas a report on the cost of and a plan in dealing with pay equalisation for new entrants to the public service.”.

We were told that amendment No. 5 was not relevant to the Bill, which points out the contradiction in the way section 39 organisations and their employees are treated. That is the explanation I was given by the Bills Office.

Amendment No. 4 requires the Minister to lay before the House a report and plan dealing with pay equalisation for new entrants to the public service. The issues and frustrations that are being articulated relate to the central issue that is driving opposition to this Bill and the deal that underpins it. There is a sense, as has already been articulated by Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett, that the Government does not wish to deal with it or does not have an interest in bringing it to a head. Addressing pay equality needs to be a political priority and that is why I am proposing this. I know the Public Service Pay Commission under Mr. Kevin Duffy is currently compiling a report. That is not due until next June. In the meantime, we have 14,000 teachers at primary and secondary level who have been recruited since 2011 on different pay scales, on a pay scale which one would really need a map to try to resolve. Many of those teachers will never get to the top of it. Many will be tens of thousands of euro worse off than they would be had they started employment in 2010. Primary teachers have worked 171 days for free, based on comparisons with those who began work ahead of 2011. That is nearly an entire school year. As Deputies have said, it makes the difference between being able to afford a house and not.

At second level, an area the Minister of State, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan, worked in, there has been a significant fall this year in the amount of people looking for what used to be the Higher Diploma in Education. There was a drop of over 50% in the Professional Master of Education, PME, applications, which is the new equivalent of the higher diploma. Are we serious as a country, when talking about STEM subjects, our presence in the world and the quality of our education system, when we are undermining that very system by making barriers to entry to teach that system through the different pay rates? Those that we educate and put time into, who are willing to give their patience and talents to teaching, are now going to England, the Middle East, Canada and Australia and we are not doing much to bring them back.

Three teaching organisations are very reasonable and have come together to work on this issue but there is equally an issue in nursing and health care. We are all dealing with issues where there are major vacancies in services across the country in occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy. There is a 97 week waiting list in County Mayo for access to occupational therapy because we cannot get it due to the unwillingness to engage with the pay equalisation issue and our reliance on HR policies that belong in the 1980s due to their lack of flexibility and lack of respect for people.

I will clarify that the agreement seems to state that there will be no further room for pay equalisation during the lifetime of the agreement but that is not in the legislation. If Mr. Kevin Duffy gives us a report, then there needs to be a commitment on the part of the Government to implement it and that the provisions contained in the report will be implemented in budget 2019. We are putting the Government on notice about that now. I get a sense that there is no political priority for this issue in Fine Gael which is why I propose this amendment to have a timeline to get a report on how this issue will be dealt with and to give a signal to every person affected by this within the civil and public service that as an Oireachtas we care about the situation and intend to resolve it.

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