Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

In other words, the Government is not going to do anything. That is the reality. It is going to stick by these collective agreements that do not serve all groups of workers. I will give the examples of the Tories, who I would not be singing the praises of at any time. Due to the teaching crisis in the UK, a scheme was introduced to make bursaries available. To teach chemistry, for example, a prospective teacher will get a scholarship of £31,000 and a bursary of £29,000, which is much higher than the average industrial wage. Postgraduate bursaries are being introduced. Irish people are going over to the UK to do their teacher training because they will be paid the average industrial wage. They will then stay in the system in the UK for a period. Australia has hard-to-fill vacancies and introduced scholarships in the amount of 5,000 Australian dollars. A non-UK student who is coming to the country to teach languages, physics, science or whatever else will get a bursary. Our Government is doing nothing. We need a city allowance for public sector workers. We need special education allowances. We need to consider how we will lift the hardship from public sector workers. Otherwise, they will continue to fly to Australia and other places all around the globe and our crisis will continue.

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