Act a license to discriminate, says INTO president

GAY and lesbian teachers have to lie about their private lives to get jobs according to the Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO) president.

This situation means that the State is failing to meet the guarantees set out in the 1916 proclamation said INTO president, Sheila Nunan, last night.

She said the Employment Equality Act enshrines in law the right of religious-run schools to discriminate against potential or existing staff on the grounds of sexual orientation or the other eight grounds set out in the law.

"This right did not exist prior to the enactment of the legislation and is a very regressive development for gay and lesbian teachers in Ireland," Ms Nunan told the INTO annual congress in Killarney, Co Kerry.

"Boards of management are, in effect, licensed to discriminate against gay and lesbian teachers.

"No other group has to lie like this to make a living," she said.

The INTO recently set up a lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers support group, demonstrating the importance that the union attaches to the right of teachers to their private lives.

Ms Nunan said the Proclamation of the Republic recalled publicly at the weekend's Easter 1916 commemorations guaranteed religious and civil liberties, equal rights and equal opportunities to all citizens.

But, she said, an examination of the education system shows that there is much work to be done to live up to these ideals.

She said that, just as the civil rights of teachers to a private life are not guaranteed, the denominational status of most of the country's 3,300 primary schools leaves parents with little choice but to send their children to a school that is not of their beliefs.

"Their religious liberties, and those of their children, are not guaranteed. Providing for a child to opt out of a religion lesson attended by the majority of his or her peers, seen where this can be arranged, does not pass the test," Ms Nunan said.

She said equal opportunities is another area in which much work has yet to be done, with maternity benefits still not on a par with those of other EU countries.

"In primary schools, there is still an over-representation of male teachers in promoted posts, contributing to a gender pay gap. The most recent figures show the average male teacher's salary is about €9,000 more than a female's," the INTO president said.

She also alluded to the resolve of the State, as set out in the proclamation, to cherish the children of the nation equally and she said the levels of poverty and disadvantage in Ireland are the biggest blot on the copybook of the economic miracle.

"Despite our prosperity, many children the inheritors of the 1916 legacy come to school hungry, cold, undernourished and inadequately dressed and go home to empty, cold and substandard accommodation," Ms Nunan said.

"We urgently need to avoid the alienation of pupils for whom Ireland Inc is an exclusive club, entry to which is denied them.

"Sadly, many teachers see this alienation and can already write the script that does not have a happy ending for their pupils," she said.