VEC staff to fight paying wages through department

THE transfer of responsibility for payment of teachers in vocational schools to the Department of Education would be firmly resisted, Vocational Education Committees (VECs) and their support staff have warned.

Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe suggested recently that payroll for about 8,000 teachers employed in the 250 second-level schools managed by the VECs could be taken over by his department.

He suggested this might free up staff to take on the extra work arising from the transfer of all college student grant schemes to VECs from next year.

But the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) warned any such move could be seen as the first step towards abolishing some of them, even though Mr O’Keeffe has said this was not on his agenda.

IVEA general secretary Michael Moriarty said: “It’s an important function of an employer to pay its staff, I don’t see why that should be sacrificed to provide the 50 or 60 staff needed to manage the new grants system.”

IMPACT, the union representing 1,200 administration staff in the VECs, said it would not be a simple case of pushing a button to hand over responsibility for teachers’ pay.

“Any efforts to take payroll work away from VECs would be seen as a threat to jobs of some members,” said IMPACT assistant general secretary Matt Staunton.

Peter McMenamin, general secretary of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland said they would not be concerned about any change, as long as members are paid correctly and on time.

However, he stressed the union would not wish to see jobs being lost in VECs if the pay function moved.