Letters to the Editor: We must think outside the box on teaching jobs

One reader says teaching graduates should be recruited in Ireland, not forced to find work overseas, while another says we need difficult women like Nell McCafferty to fight the 'tyranny of niceness'

Offering qualified teachers a three- or four-hour contract is 'insulting', says Gerard Conway.

The back to school season starts earlier and earlier every year and of course the headlines that come with it are ‘no teachers’, etc.

This is by no means a new phenomenon. It’s been the same story for the past 30 years and possibly more. I remember having to emigrate about 25 years ago, as many of my colleagues did, due to lack of teaching posts and employment stability in Ireland.

Even now, after rounds of interviews and joining interview panels for jobs, somebody could only be offered a few hours of work a week. No wonder teachers are leaving for better conditions, where your CV and interview are enough to get you the job.

Is it any wonder that newly- (and not so newly) qualified teachers have copped on in recent years and have gone to our neighbouring countries or further afield to take up full-time permanent posts with accommodation and flights home paid for, a few times a year, rather than take up an ‘insulting’ post in their native Ireland where they are offered a three- or four-hour contract?

I have known teachers who were doing this for a while, just to build up some ‘goodwill’, but they had to ‘take the boat or the plane’ after a while as it was costing them money to work in Ireland.

There are better working conditions and career paths with some supermarkets chains than there are in teaching. If you ‘stick it out’ and hang around for five or six years you may get lucky and finally get a post you can call your own.

Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones that emigrated and gained experience overseas and came home after six years; even then I had to ‘do the circuit’ and bide my time subbing and doing maternity leaves, sick leaves, and so on before a job became mine. It is the norm to wait around for permanent posts or for posts of a somewhat permanent nature. Teaching is possibly the only profession that this happens in.

It is soul-destroying for many, not being able to settle down, (don’t mention housing), start a family, etc, in a country that you love. There is no guidance from any government. We could do with another Donogh O’Malley, the minister responsible for ‘free’ education back in the late 1960s.

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I did write previously in your newspaper regarding the nurses' situation and their housing issues; why did the governments, down the years, get rid of nurses' accommodation? At least it gave a starting point for some semblance of settlement and career guidance. 

Perhaps it’s now time to revisit the accommodation situation and provide housing for nurses and teachers, etc. It is wrong to leave all of this to the private sector as we can already see the destruction of the tourist industry in many small towns and villages where it is easier, or so it seems, from a Government point of view to let private enterprise sort it. Private enterprises only sort themselves out.

Ireland prided itself on the education provided to its youth. This is seen by the vast majority of overseas schools and hospitals that come calling to recruit our graduates. They know they are getting the best. Would it not be an idea for the powers that be to recognise what a great job is done by educators in Ireland and recruit the said graduates rather than let them go elsewhere?

It’s time to think outside the box and do something.

All I am hearing is a whole load of hot air discussing and giving headlines to stuff that really should be sorted out locally. The serious issues are not being discussed or remedied. Are the parents of Ireland going to ask the awkward questions of their local politicians in the upcoming election? One wonders.

Gerard Conway, Castlebar, Co Mayo

Nonconformist Nell a feminist icon

The late Nell McCafferty was a nonconformist, sceptic, and iconoclast, and to me, she was the quintessential feminist icon.

I have always believed that feminists are on the right side of history. This just means that we have to wait for the world to catch up.

Nell McCafferty was a 'witty, courageous, brilliant, pioneering woman who educated the masses through her writings on social justice'. Picture: Leon Farrell/Photocall

Feminism will never be free of infighting, of personality clashes, and contests over priorities. My sense of same is that it will never be perfect or nice. Is it any wonder sexists and reactionaries are scared because, at the end of the day, these brave women get things done?

Fighting the tyranny of niceness is why we need difficult women.

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This Derry woman was the founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement. We will never forget Nell as being this witty, courageous, brilliant, pioneering woman who educated the masses through her writings on social justice.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam.

John O’Brien, Clonmel, Co Tipperary

Danger engineered on Cork’s Wilton Rd

With reference to Michael Moynihan’s column — When a pedestrian is killed, should we blame the traffic engineer? ( Irish Examiner, August 15) — the answer must be in the affirmative.

A case in point is the dangerous fiasco that is Wilton Rd today, compliments of the traffic engineers in Cork City Council.

Not so long ago, Wilton Rd was a pleasant residential area with a supportive integrated community until council traffic engineers decided to make it a throughway and simultaneously impose a bus lane on a narrow 9-metre road space. The council failed to carry out the statutory consultation, a safety audit, or subsequent review and designated it as a green route.

The result is that it has developed into a highly-dangerous polluted racetrack, with more than 9,000,000 vehicles traversing per annum.

Two 24/7 covert speed surveys carried out by Cork City Council in 2011 and 2014 showed that 1,400,000 vehicles broke the 50kph speed limit annually, equal to a staggering 3,800 per day, many over 100kph, with the top speed of 135kph recorded on several days.

A recent pollution survey by the council showed NO2 levels at over 30% above World Health Organization standards.

Remarkably, council road engineers, despite many meetings with officials, gardaí, councillors, and senior management, concluded that there was no speeding on the roadway, using averages instead of whole numbers as outlined in the reports.

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Senior Garda officers also reported serious shortcomings with the road lining and design at Wilton Gardens junction and with the dangerous and confusing yellow box at the church, both areas resulting in numerous accidents, serious injuries, and multiple near-misses over the years.

The council traffic engineers and senior management, despite the clear evidence from senior Garda officers, can certainly be blamed for failing to mitigate the dangers and to display any empathy or concern for the safety and wellbeing of residents and all road users.

John Leahy, Wilton, Cork

Time restrictions of redress scheme

It is not surprising that, according to reports, Government talks with Church bodies over contributing to mother and baby home survivor compensation have stalled. There is no compulsion to pay.

A 2002 contribution agreement for institutional abuse redress, with Roman Catholic religious congregations, granted financial indemnity against successful legal action by individual survivors. That government scheme obtained no contribution from Protestant institutions, resulting in the anomaly of Catholic money paying, proportionately, for abuse of Protestant survivors.

On that point, correspondence with seven Roman Catholic bodies and with the Church of Ireland is noted. Only the Protestant-run Bethany Home was mentioned in connection with the Church of Ireland. It is surprising if there is no discussion on the Church of Ireland Magdalen Asylum (Denny House from 1979).

As its name implies, the Church had a more direct relationship with the Magdalen institution, that was connected also to the Magdalen Church alongside it on Dublin’s Leeson St.

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As the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Inquiry Report noted, the Archbishop of Dublin and the head of Church of Ireland social services sat on asylum management committees. That is an official link of a type the Church disclaims in relation to the Bethany Home.

Negotiations with Church bodies conducted by trade unionist Sheila Nunan were only supposed to take six months, from May 2023. Political and moral pressure appears insufficient to extract payment.

There is one reason why such bodies might refuse to contribute.

The time-based payment scheme is restrictive, insulting and, for some, demoralising. Unlike a proposed scheme in Northern Ireland, residence in an institution for more than 180 days (six months) is required, irrespective of the effect on survivors.

As he explained recently, it excludes former Bethany Home resident Patrick Anderson McQuoid, despite devastating life consequences.

Contributing to the current scheme could be considered immoral and politically indefensible. Reform the scheme, please, before proffering collection baskets.

Niall Meehan, Journalism and Media Faculty, Griffith College, Dublin