New teachers face extra 4% cut in pay, union claims

NEW entrants to teaching have been targeted with a pay cut of 14% instead of the 10% cut for new public servants announced in the Government’s Four Year Plan, a major teaching union has claimed.

General Secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) Pat King has written to the Department of Education and Skills, requesting that the matter be rectified.

“The ASTI strongly objects to the proposed 10% reduction in the pay of new entrants to the public sector. What we find most objectionable, however, is that new teachers — who up to now have been appointed to the third point of the teachers’ salary scale — will be appointed to the first point.

“This means a pay cut of 14%, and not 10% as previously announced,” he said.

Mr King said he had “no doubt” that such a situation was not intended by the Government and was thus asking that it be rectified “as a matter of urgency”.

In addition, the ASTI pointed out that new teachers who teach abroad before taking up a post in Ireland will no longer have their teaching experience recognised at home. Newly-qualified teachers also face the proposition of a new pension scheme which will see them pay more in contributions than they receive in pension benefit, he claimed.

Meanwhile, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has warned that thousands of students will be forced to drop out of college unless changes made by the previous Government to student grants are reversed.

The group warned Education Minister Ruairi Quinn that the changes, due to be implemented next September, will have a hugely negative impact on thousands of the most disadvantaged students.

In the last budget, the Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government made critical changes to the qualification criteria for the non-adjacent student grant.

The distance a student must live from a college to qualify for the non-adjacent rate of grant was almost doubled from 24 kilometres to 45 kilometres. Mature students will no longer be automatically entitled to the non-adjacent grant rate.

It is estimated that the changes will impact on some 25,000 students nationwide, 7,000 of whom will be mature students.

According to the USI, these changes represent a loss of over €1,700 per student but they stressed the cuts would be most savage for students who are currently in receipt of the top rate of maintenance and the additional special rate.

These students will see their grant reduced from €6,355 to €2,545 — a decrease of €3,810.

General Secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) Mike Jennings has also called on the minister to intervene to protect the rights of up to 4,000 researchers, librarians and other staff who are being placed on temporary contracts by universities, in violation of European directives and related legislation here.