Joanne Irwin
MANY Donegal schoolteachers struggle to make ends meet after years of pay cuts and taxes, one of their reps has warned.
Joanne Irwin, the incoming TUI Vice President from Co. Donegal, had sponsored branch motions at their annual conference this week.
These included demanding that the Department of Education and Skills establish and introduce, in consultation with the teacher unions, a uniform selection and marking criteria for all teaching and promotional appointments and the introduction of a mechanism nationally to oversee the operation of these procedures.
They also demanded that the moratorium on posts of responsibility be revoked immediately so that schools can function without placing further burdens on our principals and centre managers. This motion called for an audit to be undertaken to ascertain the true impact this moratorium is having on TUI members and the education of our students/learners.
Ms Irwin gave a passionate speech on the effects that continual cutbacks is having on teachers’ mental and physical health and called for an immediate investigation into this matter.
She also called for a study that will examine the impacts that the Haddington Road Agreement, the Croke Park Agreement, the decimation of middle management, the cull of guidance and counselling and other initiatives are having on her members.
“Teachers are struggling to survive on low incomes which barely provide a basic standard of living because of this growing insidious casualisation of the teaching profession,” she told Donegal Daily.
“More than 30% of our members at second level earn a salary based on less than full hours and even more startling more than 50% of our members aged under 35 are part time teachers.”
She insisted: “Our schools are both pillars in our communities, and communities within themselves. For many students, the security of the school community is a safe place during a time of confusion in their lives when everything, physically and emotionally, is in a state of flux for them. We need to provide consistency for our students.”
Delegates who represented the Co. Donegal branch this year included members from second level schools, adult education centres and Youthreach centres – teachers, managers, assistant principals and principals and therefore fully represented all members that the Co. Donegal Branch represent, she said.
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