Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would be very grateful if the Minister for Education and Skills would come into the House to address a particular injustice being inflicted on teachers who are not members of any trade union but who are being subjected to the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation. I have been contacted by one such teacher in a designated community college who is not a member of any trade union. This individual, like many other teachers, continues to engage in supervision and substitution duties and to complete the additional hours required under the Croke Park agreement. However, like approximately 1,000 other teachers, this person is being financially penalised every month because he is not a member of a trade union.

When the Department of Education and Skills went to apply the FEMPI penalties to members of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, ASTI, it did not consider that it was allowed, under data protection legislation, to access information about which teachers are members of the ASTI, even though the Department would have such information for payroll purposes to allow for the deduction of ASTI dues and so forth. Therefore, the Department decided to ask teachers in designated community colleges, for example, who were members of the TUI, to identify themselves as such to the education and training boards or to the Department itself so that the benefits of the Lansdowne Road agreement could be applied to them. Any teacher who did not indicate that he or she was a member of the TUI was treated as not subscribing to the terms and conditions of the Lansdowne Road agreement and faced the penalties of the FEMPI legislation. This is simply unjust. It seems to me that there are constitutional issues involved here when one considers that one has a right to associate and indeed, not to associate or be a member of a trade union. For teachers not to have been given the opportunity to opt out of the FEMPI legislation simply because they were not members of a designated union is, quite frankly, invidious.

I have been in touch with the Department about this and I got what I can only describe as a Sir Humphrey-type response to the effect that there is no proposal at this time to treat teachers separately based on the fact that they are not members of a trade union. That answer is simply not good enough. We are talking here about teachers who did not want to be precluded from enjoying the benefits of the Lansdowne Road agreement, who carry out their substitution and supervision duties but who, because they do not fit the Department's easy model and are not in a particular trade union, have been denied their rights.This is a serious matter. I call on the Minister for Education and Skills to come to the House to explain the position and, more important, to set out what the Department proposes to do to rectify this injustice.