Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Bill before the House this evening is a missed opportunity to strive towards one of the most important underlying principles of fairness and justice in our society, the principle of equal pay for equal work. It is a fundamental undermining of this principle that any person should be paid considerably less for doing the same job simply because they started work after a certain date. This multi-tiered system, which results in some public servants earning as much as 20% less than colleagues, should be abolished as soon as possible so all public servants can be paid the same for the same work. It is equal pay for equal work. How many times need we say this to the Government but it still refuses to commit to that principle? Not only does the Bill completely avoid addressing this basic inequality but it also applies punitive measures to those who have not signed up to the Public Service Stability Agreement, PSSA, 2018-2020. It is on that basis that the Green Party will oppose sections 21 and 33 this evening.

Section 21 would suspend the awarding of increments to members of trade unions or staff associations that have not notified the Workplace Relations Commission that they agree to be bound by the PSSA. These members are defined in section 3 as non-covered public servants. They will not receive any benefits of the agreement from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2020. To incentivise sign-up to the PSSA, section 21 provides for less favourable terms for public servants not covered by the PSSA between 2018 and 2020. These include slower pay restoration, with each increase taking place nine months later than the scheduled pay increase, and the suspension of incremental increases up to the end of 2020. Meanwhile, section 33 of the Bill requires non-covered public servants to start giving pension contributions from a lower wage threshold than anyone else.

Given the number of young and new teachers in this country, it is of no surprise that it is among the teacher unions that the PSSA has been roundly rejected. Tá riachtanas ann go léireofar meas ar ár múinteoirí óga agus nua-cáilithe sa tír seo. Cad is fiú dóibh a bheith ina seasamh os comhair ranga má tá an múinteoir béal dorais leo i dteideal pá níos airde ná iad. Caithfear luach a gcuid saothair a thabhairt dóibh luath nó mall. The teaching profession in our country is being devalued and this will have a detrimental impact on the quality of education in Ireland. Our younger teachers play a vital role in the future direction of education and they are highly skilled and specialised classroom practitioners, entrusted on a daily basis with major and far-reaching responsibility. By allowing differential payscales to continue, we are telling our teachers that they do not matter and we do not care. That is simply not good enough. They will leave our shores if this continues.

At some stage in the near future will this Government please commit to the principle of equal pay for equal work? Do it now. The Green Party will oppose this section.

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