Unanimous vote to reject public service pay deal

THE Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) has unanimously voted against the public service pay agreement and threatened potential strike action from September in response to the latest Cabinet cutbacks.

At the first day of its annual congress in Ennis, Co Clare, 450 delegates of the union – representing 14,500 teachers in community and vocational second level schools, institutes of technology and PLCs – rejected plans agreed between the Government and public service unions.

In a highly emotional hour-long session, delegates describing the pay deal as “educational treason”, a “wholesale assault on schools” and an agreement to which “no self-respecting union” would submit.