Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I welcome the fact that the Government will have to come back to the House and present a report which will give us an opportunity to continue the debate. It will also give young teachers and their unions an opportunity to exert more pressure on the Government on this issue. However, I want to comment briefly on a point that the Minister made in his speech which has not been challenged yet in this debate but which should be challenged. The Minister essentially said that while equal pay for equal work is a good idea and something to which we should aspire, it is something that he feels we cannot afford at the moment and he trotted out the figures: €70 million for the education profession and €200 million across the public service. As Deputy Boyd Barrett has said, the money is there if the Government is prepared to go after the wealth that is held by the wealthy and the elite in this country. I agree with that point entirely but there is another point to be made here. If a Government Minister can stand up and say that we cannot afford equal pay for work of equal value, what will he say next? Will he say that human rights are a good idea but we cannot afford them or that democracy is a good idea but we cannot afford it? Either one believes in the principle of equal pay for work of equal value or one does not. Clearly, on the basis of its comments and actions, the Government does not. Many young teachers and young public sector workers will draw political conclusions from this. If Fine Gael Ministers and the capitalist system they defend say that we cannot afford to pay equal pay for work of equal value, a lot of people will draw the conclusion that they cannot afford to have Fine Gael in government or the system that it defends.

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