Attacks on Public Service 13/01/09

Statement by John Carr, INTO General Secretary

13 January 2009
 
Declaration of war on the public service unfair and unjustified
 
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) today condemned what it called a “declaration of war” on the public service by government and certain right wing commentators. The union’s general secretary John Carr said attacks like this are offensive and demoralizing to hard working public servants like primary teachers.
 
“Unfair and unwarranted attacks on the public service will only make the prospect of finding agreement on a national recovery plan more difficult,” said Carr.
 
“Rather than continually scapegoating public servants government must move to protect essential services like education and ensure that contributions to recovery are made by those with the means to do so,” he said. “Those who benefited from the boom must make the biggest contribution and limited resources must go to those with less.”
 
He said primary teaching showed the vacuous arguments behind broad-ranging attacks on public servants.
 
“Ireland has the second highest class sizes in primary schools in the EU,” said Carr. “There are no surplus workers in primary schools. Government has already announced its intention to slash more than a thousand teaching jobs and has taken funding away from disadvantaged and special needs pupils.” He said the INTO would continue to fight against these cuts and added that primary schools were "propped up and kept going by voluntary fundraising because Irish spending on education is one of the lowest in the EU.”  
 
He said primary schools have been transformed by teachers in the last two decades giving the lie to claims that there has been no reform or productivity. Mr Carr said there had been a complete revision of the curriculum, computers introduced into schools and newcomer children accommodated. He said special needs children had been integrated, new forms of pupil assessment introduced and new industrial relations measures to deal with the small number of teachers with professional difficulties adopted.
 
“Claims that there has been no reform are false and misleading,” said Carr. “In truth,” he said, “primary teachers are among the most productive public servants in the world. They consistently deliver more with less,” said Carr.
 
In relation to teachers’ salaries, Carr said Irish primary teaching continues to attract the best school leavers into its ranks. “This is not the case everywhere and comparisons with other countries must also be balanced by the fact that the cost of living in Ireland is higher than other countries in the EU.” Carr said “inflation, which government failed to tackle, wiped out recent pay increases to workers. Our price levels remain among the highest in Europe.”
 
He said in order to build confidence in any possible recovery plan government must clearly show how it intends to reform other areas of Irish life such as the banking sector. “Citizens want to know how tax-payers money so far committed by government will not result in private gain and public loss,” said Carr.
 
He called for greatly increased regulation and an end to the perverse bonus and incentive schemes that have operated. He said the banks are now effectively owned by the taxpayer and they should be restructured on the basis of mutuality to give a return to citizens not speculators.
 
Carr also called for action to drive down the cost of living and doing business in Ireland. He said, “wages here reflect the cost of living and if government wasn’t prepared to tackle still rampant opportunism in parts of the private sector then there would be no confidence in any recovery plan.”
 
He said government must be pro-business but must not subsidise the obscene lifestyles of ruthless profiteers. Carr also called for the removal of state subsidies to the property market which he said “contributed to the current economic situation”.
 
He said teachers recognized the need for action to aid national recovery and would play their part but warned that attempts to impose pay cuts on teachers and other public servants will be resisted by all necessary means by the union.
 
“Teachers and other public servants will not subsidize the excessive incomes of the already wealthy and privileged in society,” said Carr. 

Ends.