Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would love to know what happened to that. I find it the most difficult thing. I was employed in teaching in 1995 and went straight into a permanent job with full hours. Less than two years later, colleagues were being employed for a couple of hours per week. I remember writing to the Minister responsible for social protection that teachers and lecturers teaching for one hour per day were not earning any sort of income but were not entitled to any sort of welfare because they were working for five days per week. What is more, many of them were required to sit in the staff room in case additional hours came up. This happened in institutes of technology, now technological universities, as much as in second level schools. I do not know what happened that employment in education has become so precarious.

In my final year in the Teachers Union of Ireland, we negotiated a change to the contract of indefinite duration from four years to two, which was a remarkable achievement at the time. The Department and the unions came together on that. If we want the best people driving our academic institutions to the highest levels internationally, we have to give them employment which guarantees their income, the home loan that Senator Higgins spoke about, the ability to buy a car and to live a life as a young person, rather than wait until they are a decrepit old so-and-so like me before they have enough money to live on. It is not good enough. I ask the Minister to take Senator Higgins's amendments on board.