New teachers are ‘like galley slaves’

Newly employed teachers are being treated like “galley slaves” and will earn around €300,000 less over a 40-year career than current senior colleagues, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) conference has been told.

The first day of the annual conference in Killarney, Co Kerry, heard new teachers are struggling to cope after being hit with lower pay rates introduced in 2011 and the abolition of allowances for qualifications in 2012.

General secretary John MacGabhann said newly employed teachers were being treated like “galley slaves” who are forced, by poverty, to give up part-time jobs, to emigrate, and to moonlight.