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

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak again in this House on pay inequality in the public service. I appreciate that it is a complicated issue, rather than an easy one, but it is now 2018, seven years since the first new entrants to the public service were put on a different pay scale than that of their older counterparts. Some new entrants have been doing the same work for less pay than their counterparts for seven years and there is still no clear end in sight.

Our young people have been devalued. They are receiving a loud and clear message that their work is not worth as much as that of their older colleagues despite the fact that they are doing the exact same job and have the exact same responsibilities.

With regard to teachers, who make up a significant proportion of those affected by this inequality, a recent OECD report, Education at a Glance, found a direct correlation between teachers' pay the quality of education. The teaching profession has been devalued. This will have a detrimental impact on the future quality of education. There is a multi-tier system whereby newly qualified teachers earn more than 20% less than their colleagues.

Younger teachers play a vital role in the future direction of education and they are highly skilled, specialist classroom practitioners entrusted daily with major and far-reaching responsibilities. By allowing a differential pay scale to continue, we are telling our teachers that they do not matter and that we do not care. That is simply not good enough. They, along with so many public servants who are suffering from similar inequalities, will continue to leave our shores if this continues.

In recent weeks, the teachers' unions met at their annual conferences and backed calls for potential strike action if the Government does not properly address this issue once and for all. An unambiguous, direct and straightforward commitment that the Government will not allow unequal pay for equal work to continue is absolutely essential. For these teachers and so many in our public service, enough is enough.

This is a very complicated issue but it is also a very simple one. It all comes down to the simple principle for which activists and societies have fought for centuries for women and minority groups, namely, the principle of equal pay for equal work.

I look forward to the outcome of the talks between the Minister and the unions but I call on the Government to continue with the clear understanding that it is not sustainable in a fair, just and equitable society to pay anyone less than anyone else for the same work. That is non-negotiable.

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