Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you the nine things you really need to know as you start your day.
1. #NORWAY: The 32-year-old man suspected of the double attacks in Norway on Friday has admitted responsibility for them, according to his lawyer. Anders Behring Breivik claimed that his actions were “gruesome but necessary”. He is due in court tomorrow. Police have been investigating whether a second person was involved, although Breivik says he acted alone. At least 92 people were killed in the two attacks, but the death toll may rise further as four people who were camping on the island remain missing. Norwegian authorities also say they have been unable to fully search buildings damaged by the bomb in Oslo.
2. #COURTS: Gardaí investigating the disappearance of a Latvian man, Juris Buls, have found a body in a wooded area near the Glenamaddy to Creggs Road in Co Galway. A 35-year-old man arrested in connection with the investigation is due to appear before Tuam District Court this morning.
3. #CHILD ABUSE: Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has told the Sunday Business Post (print edition) that new legislation binding professionals and others who have contact with children to report any information they have about child abuse to gardaí will also cover parents. If parents who are told by their children that they have been abused to not inform gardaí, they could face prosecution under this legislation.
4.#RINK SHOOTING: A gunman killed five people before killing himself in what police suspect was a domestic dispute during a party at a roller-skating rink in Texas, the AP reports.
5. #BOI: The government is engaged in last minute talks with potential Bank of Ireland investors to secure a deal which would see the state remain a minority stakeholder in the bank, according to the Sunday Business Post.
6. #HOWLIN: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has spent over €47,000 refurbishing his constituency and ministerial offices. The Sunday Times (subscription required) reports that that figure includes €47.67 spent on a sign saying “Minister’s Toilet”.
7. #BORD GÁIS: Bord Gáis has added an extra 78 people to its credit control department – more than a seven-fold increase on the previous level of staff there – to cope with the rising level of customer arrears, the Sunday Business Post reports.
8. #RHINO TRAFFICKING: A rhino horn trafficking group recently hired a group of Thai prostitutes and strippers to pose as hunters in South Africa to get around laws limiting the trophy hunting of rhinos, according to Global Post.
9. #WINEHOUSE: Musicians have been paying tribute on Twitter to the late Amy Winehouse, who was found dead at her London home yesterday. Winehouse’s former producer Mark Ronson tweeted:
she was my musical soulmate & like a sister to me. this is one of the saddest days of my life
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Congratulations to the members of the ASTI on having self respect.
It has been proven again that unions in this country are good at taking members’ money, yet when it comes to the crunch they are not worth a toss. These people went up and down the country putting the fear of God into their members to make sure they would this in. How do I switch membership to join the asti?
Elisabeth, the union officials were quite clearly staying neutral in this regard. At our union meeting with a union official, they were roundly challenged for doing so.
Grainne, I was at the executive meeting, they pushed a yes and every time anyone protested about haddington road the benefits wife shoved down our throat…of course each time the phrase’ but we’re not telling you what way to vote’ was tagged on at the end. It war a complete shambles!
Well, I got the opposite vibe from the executive member who spoke to our branch meeting…
In the end of the day, I suppose we had the information and the majority spoke, whatever the executive did or didn’t do. But I felt leadership was lacking
I’ve been a secondary school teacher for 5 years now and iv seen an increase in my gross every year but my net pay has gone up €20 a fortnight since I started work.
I really love my job and I consider myself extremely lucky to be in full time employment in education as iv seen numerous friends emigrate like in every type of job.
However we can’t take anymore cuts and I don’t mean just in pay…Class sizes have become huge (my 1st yr class in 2008 had 25 students now in 2013 iv 30 1st yrs in my class) the people suffering most are the students.
I’m not going to get involved in a private v public debate but I am disappointed at the result. I’m preparing myself for the usual tirade about 3 months summer holidays, short days etc etc. In fact reading posts like that don’t necessarily anger me; they make me feel appreciative that people have the freedom to express their views even though I may not agree with them.
I don’t agree with the first response “finally they see sense” but I understand that if you have never worked as a teacher then you don’t get to see the whole picture so you may believe that this is a good thing. This won’t have an impact on teachers but students will feel it too. Cut backs in education don’t work.
In my humble opinion we have just welcomed the government to come back for more.
Audrey , I don’t work as a teacher , I have however worked as a volunteer in my local primary school with one to one reading skills. I can see the time , effort and dedication that teachers give students. My child gets a brilliant education in a school that has no money and struggles with he daily expenses that running a school involves. Anyone who criticises teachers working hours have no understanding of what is involved and I for one do not think that a child should spend 48 weeks a year in a classroom .
I agree. Teachers do need down time. I gave maths grinds for 15 years and it’s exhausting. (No, of course I didn’t declare the income).
Teachers should be paid more. If we had the ability to move the non performers.
A good teacher is worth their weight in gold. Literally. They have such an influence on tomorrows movers and shakers. Tomorrows wealth creators. Job creators.
The only two jobs in the world more important than teaching are motherhood and midwifery.
And farming.
Possibility
I’m ashamed of my colleagues who voted for this farce. The government said that if we did extra work they would not cut pay. We did the extra work, they cut the pay anyway, and we’ve just voted for their farcical “agreement”. Disgusted
Delighted to hear it. I just hope young teachers aren’t shafted with unpaid supervision duties that are badly needed to make up decent hours. Next step has to be stopping retired teachers being allowed to get part time hours and give new entrants a chance to start our careers.
Unfortunately Paul teachers relying on substitution hours will lose out. Substitution hours will now be increased and will have to be done without pay.
By default that is what will happen Paul. Hundreds of young part time teachers have just been done out of decent pay or worse out of a job.
Unfortunately, shafting young teachers is exactly what the Haddington agreement does, particularly those newly qualified teachers who are reliant on subbing work.
Paul, it is exactly what will happen. Young teachers – all teachers, will have to do unpaid supervision duties. That’s part of the deal. That’s what 55% of TUI members have voted for…
No way around it mate. Young teachers are the soft underbelly of the profession. I’m genuinely shocked that the tui, of all unions, would be the ones to assent to this. Young teachers are being sacrificed on the altar of ‘St ability’. Not good enough.
Tiny violin….nobody forced them into teaching they had a choice of any career they wanted. If they are young teachers then they qualified in the recession what else did they expect? 100k a year?
They knew they’d be paid by a state that was broke and had a bloated ineffective public sector the electorate was crying out for reform in, what did they think was going to happen?
Ger maybe the TUI see that Haddington Road, CPII and all these deals are shockingly easy on the PS and they are getting away with murder , that if most of the voting public saw these deals they’d be outraged at how lax they are, and maybe they are being smart in taking what they can get because the next offers going to be even worse.
Ryan, nobody minds reform. We are all for reform. Croke Park or Haddington Road are not about reform, they are about perception. Making teachers do more work on paper to make the public happy, while ignoring all the work they have done without pay over the years. There have been no reforms that actually improved education.
I’m on career break at the moment with a young child and I’m abroad at the moment because of my partner’s job. I took the break two years ago at the point where we were deciding what to do with the 33 hours extra as per the Croke Park agreement, and the pointlessness of the whole exercise was clear – trying to find ways to fill those hours by consultations about documents on health and safety, documents on policies of all kinds, but not anything directly affecting students. Imagine of those 33 hours a years were actually ALLOWED to be used to benefit students directly – either through extra-curricular activities or special needs classes. But no, they were allocated for piling up PAPERWORK. What a waste. I reckon I’ll be throwing in the towel at the end of my career break, much as I hate to leave my job because I genuinely loved it, but after 10 years subbing and finally getting a “contract of indefinite duration” for a grand total of 14 hours (those of you who believe all public sector workers are on a beano in permanent full-time jobs should do a bit of research, PLEASE!), well, it would look like it’s not worth my while returning since my partner’s on a better wage than I am and the cost of extra childcare in the evenings wouldn’t be worth it. I think I did a damn good job but I see the terrible situation of younger teachers and I am in despair of the way the education sector has been treated in recent years. In the early 2000′s things were really looking up for the education system generally and particularly students. Now there’s barely money to for example change windows to double glazing (as was the case in the school in which I worked until 20011)
Well said Dolores. I think it has to be pointed out that the 33 extra hours were simply a punitive measure to pacify the general public and to show that the teachers were being punished….for being teachers! The general public do not realise that the extra 33 hours could not be used for extra tuition, extra curricular work but we had to “invent” Department of Education waffle! Policy documents had to be written, that everyone knows, are pure time wasting exercises. Like it or not , our education system ran on the good will of many many teachers. The current “agreement” has totally undermined this and will continue to erode the educational experience of students in the long term.
In our school, we call it “detention”. We have to sign in for it, like bold schoolchildren. It’s disgusting, and a total waste of time. Time that we would willingly use in other, more productive ways. I would have been happy to teach an extra hour, for example. Better than sitting in a staff meeting making up things to talk about.
Fair play to ASTI, they made the right decision. I am a TUI member (unfortunately) however I am now going to investigate if I can change unions.
There’s an unofficial agreement between the unions at the moment preventing transfers, a few people I know have looked into it. Freedom of choice eh?
I teach in a school where most staff are TUI but a fair few are ASTI. I wonder how this will all pan out?
I’m TUI but voted ‘no’ I wonder if, even in my exclusively TUI centre there’s an argument for moving to ASTI? Saddens me to consider it, but I don’t know if I can participate in a process I don’t believe in. Haddington Road has tied our hands on future industrial action. They’ll be back for the sick leave and the maternity benefit top up, mark my words, and we’ll sit dumb, like we did when they came for the NQTs, the ‘allowances’ and the sick and maternity leave before. Sad day for teachers.
Egallag, I’ve been a member of TUI all my teaching career, and I voted NO to. I have to say I’m ashamed today of the attitude taken by so many of my colleagues. I think it was mainly the threats of redeployment and redundancies that swung it.
Not sure if I’d look to switch unions, but I think it’s a shameful day for TUI. Mind you, we should have been given direction by the union…they sat on the fence.
Be lucky for what you have the big bad world is a scary place
Sad to hear this news….fear is the winner.
ASTI says no. TUI and INTO say yes.
It’s 2001 all over again with the ASTI hung out to dry.
It’s no wonder no one respects teachers. Haven’t even the sense to stand together.
In 2001 the INTO and TUI were only glad to accept the spoils earned by the Asti members.
One of the reasons I believe those members voted yes is that their schools are financed better than voluntary secondary schools. Vec schools are far better resourced while national schools have access to higher numbers of SNAs and grants.
My school certainly isn’t well financed…
No, I believe that the reason people voted yes was that they were scared into doing so by threats of redundancies and redeployments. Redeployment has already happened, and we’ve lost valuable colleagues, and we were told that nobody, permanent or part time, was safe from either.
I believe that was the deciding factor.
The threat of redeployment was a really insidious one, especially for those of us who spent years working maternity leaves and career breaks, waiting until May each year (with several teachers knowing whether their friends were coming back or not but couldn’t really say) to be finally told whether we’d have a job or not the following September… only ot finally achieve a “contract of indefinite duration” and then find that the fear of being kicked out of our jobs was to be replaced by the fear of being kicked out of it and into a completely different school in a completely different area (not to mention the petrol costs). Not surprised some people gave in unfortunately..
Imagine, Dolores, teaching in a school for twenty years or more, and being told that you were being redeployed to a totally different educational setting, when all your skills and experience are in the are you’ve worked in for twenty years. And to see someone who is a couple of years in a job staying put because their particular subject is needed…
I know exactly what you mean! As the second art teacher in a school of just under 800 pupils I was constantly under threat of this (and told so too). There are people in the private sector who don’t seem to understand the carpet can be pulled out from under someone in the public sector in an instant these days and it really riles me when I hear this (sure ye’re on a cushy number B.S.) For me, after covering 5 years of someone’s career break (on 22 hours – obviously full time) and being told she had quit, I was told that due to the change in the pupil-teacher ratio that year (2009) there were only 14 hours for me and I most certainly did not slip straight into a permanent position neither. The complications of CID’s are well known in the teaching profession. I had just started teaching back in 2001 when the strike happened and it seemed to me that all people cared about was that their childcare arrangements were disrupted, not that the quality of education might be affected down the line… yet here we are.
I understand where you’re coming from, Dolores. It took me twelve years to get a permanent job, and I qualified in the early eighties. Eight years of subbing, part time and signing on in holidays, and three years in England and I finally got the security I needed. I never gave up because I love teaching…and twenty years on I love it just as much.
If you love teaching, stick at it if you can, but of course when it more or less costs you more to come to work than you earn, it can’t be easy. There are permanent jobs out there, somewhere.
I personally think GOOD teachers dont get paid half enough. Toughest job in the world, id need twice their holidays to recover. Its a shame, like all public and civil servents we judge them all by the bad ones we have encountered! Well done asti I wish impact had bern as brave!
TUI members need to realise that the introduction of Haddington Rd means alteration of their contract. Supervision and supervision becomes part of working terms and conditions and can be altered at any time. 22 hours contact time is gone forever. Looking forward, as new junior cert begins, there will in all probability be a spill-over into the month of June. It is suggested that 12 working days will be added here, in addition to the 4.5 extra weeks which you are already working, due to sns and croke park hours. ASTI is the last man standing and needs to be strong.
Let the educational apartheid commence..
Yes. And the debate will no doubt be blighted by the usual plethora of irrelevancies, incorrect assumptions, lack of awareness and understanding, anecdotal evidence. Roll on Pat Kenny, Duffy and the rest of them tearing into teachers, supported by others who have every agenda under the sun and will use the teachers situation to air these agendas. I would ask these people to remember that not giving support to the teachers is tantamount to endorsing the wrecking of the educational system being carried out by Quinn and his government partners. That is, the education system and society in general. And BTW, unbelievable vote by TUI. Inexplicable
They’ve finally seen sense!
How is this going to work in a school where Asti and Tui work side by side? Tui teachers offer 5 subbing classes a wk for nothing and Asti do 3 for pay?
Tui exec showed no leadership. Need one united second level union.
Not to mention teachers who are not union members.
I have no sympathy for teachers who are not union members. They are quick to take the benefits the union has got for them over the years. Young, part time teachers wouldn’t have pro-rata contracts, meaning they get paid for the holidays, if it weren’t for the unions, for example
Go Eamon:-)
I’d just like to say to public servants in general, you constantly play into the hands of the divide and conquer strategy with your incompetence, ‘I don’t give a s1it’ attitude, and your wonton laziness day in day out.
You FORCE the public to have a low opinion of you.
As a personal example I had to deal with the DSP and HSE a lot in the last few months. One time my payments were stopped due to a technicality and they said they could reactivate them but it would take 3 days to go through.
I said I can’t wait, I need my medications if I so much as wait a day it can mushroom and consume my insides it’s a very aggressive form of cancer, the woman behind the desk condescendingly said ”well sure you have a medical card” (incidentally the HSE did not want to give me one because my cancer was not fatal enough).
Now I did not have parental financial support, I lived with roommates, and the DSP was my only income, I have a grand total of 9 medications which comes to 13.50 and one not on the medical card at 50.
She directed me down to the back of the office to another random hatch to a guy who supposedly had more discretion.
Behind this hatch was a guy in a filthy dark brown tshirt with a giant beer gut, he looked like he had not showered in days, he had a lot of stubble and a very cracked flaky action going on around his forehead, the kind of build up you only get if you don’t shower daily (or moisturize if you have dry skin). I always had to be clean shaven at work, and weight I know not everyone can be a Hollister model but anyone I know who carries some weight wears clothes to complement them esp at work.
I sat down and said hi and began to explain my situation. He then got up, walked away without saying a word, then came back and said ”i didn’t hear a word of that you’ll have to repeat it”.
I explained my very life could be in danger if I miss medications I said I know you have a CWO he can give me enough to get me through a few days even, I specifically said I don’t want anything extra just take it out of my next payment.
It turned out you can’t do the thing where u minus what you give someone out of their next payment if they’ve already reactivated the payment and sent it through, you have to take it out BEFORE you send it through, it turned out he HAD heard me the first time, and had gone over to reactivate my payments so he’d not have to call the CWO down to issue me a postal draft..he went out of his way to avoid giving someone with a potentially life threatening illness a portion of his own money to avoid 2-3 minutes of paperwork…
That night as the muscle spasms started from the interruption in the meds, I see a SIPTU union rep on the tv whinging complaining they can’t put petrol into their cars, I exploded in a moment of pure rage and hurled my coffee cup at the tv, my shaking hand meant I hit the wall instead luckily for me.
We need to start over with our public service, zero based budget and new structure, and we need to ban anyone who worked in the old system working in the new one so those decrepit work practices don’t survive the transition.
I know teachers are in a unique job and most would not be as incompetent as the DSP people but ASTI have their own issues with protecting bad teachers and preventing reform and you know it….fighting a loosing battle folks…
Damm that looked shorter in the reply box…sorry! Let me off this one time! :P
What a sad story.
What has any of that got to do with teaching?
Once again it won’t let me post properly for some reason, in short, you are all part of the same problem
The Haddington Road deal is about public sector pay. In theory we are reforming the public sector at the same time as reducing overtime etc, in practice the unions are fighting anything including common sense changes.
The ASTI is no different than SIPTU, they are opposed to any common sense LC reform, they protect lazy incompetent teachers from being fired, and they are here turning down a very generous deal under the current circumstances.
You are all part of the same problem, unions protecting spoilt lazy and inflexible ‘workers’ and then getting outraged when that comes back to bite you in the ass in the form of lower pay and conditions.
How are we all part of the same problem, Ryan?
Ryan, rejecting the HRA means accepting LARGER pay cuts…
The system is created and twisted at a whim by politicians. It is the laws and rules created by self serving senior members of political parties that have the system so truly complicated. If it was not for the civil servants who maintained the systems that can guarantee you payment in three days then you’d starve. The public service gets the blame for piss poor political leadership and the public are too stupid to understand that.
Ryan, I didn’t realize teachers were paid over time…. I wait they aren’t!!
The HRA hits teachers far more than any other profession, inexplicable that the into and tui accepted it (but those unions were only too happy to accept the S&S earned by the ASTI strikes,
Once again they coward out of action).
Teachers were the only union to have an allowance taken away under HRA. The PS system is full of allowances for doing feck all but teachers get hit with S&S which is tough. They expected teacher to work any extra 20% for nothing (5 sub classes, 1 hr supervision and 1 hr CP1).
Ryan, I’m loathe to respond as I worry that you’re not expressing what you actually mean, but can I say as a teacher with a disease that fairly causes the insides to go mental, I haven’t had your experience- because I work, so I get nothing to help me pay for my treatment while my hours are increased and my workload inflated and my pay consumed by levies.
And I am sorry about your illness because I know the fear of not being able to provide for yourself or your family as you would have been if you didn’t draw the short straw on health.
But it’s not the public service’s fault.
If we had more staff we’d function better. If we had a promotional structure we’d be more motivated. If we had your support we could both get what we need quicker.
For the love of god (or anything!) Ryan Carroll, you may have had massive problems with public sector workers but I fail to see how this has anything to do with teachers and their current situation/their role in society. Jesus if that’s the case I can throw in my tuppence worth about being 35 and having severe osteoarthirits and probably needing a hip replacement soon and the length of time it took to get diagnosed and receive treatment. You need to find another outlet for your irritations. If you walked into most voluntary secondary schools (I can only speak for one such school, and only as recently as 2 years ago) there was a wealth of extra-curricular activity going on – FOR FREE. And after that teachers would go home to their own kids (which they could have done probably 2 hours earlier without such activities) and then spend probably between one and three hours preparing the following day’s work/correcting that day’s homework/tests/essays. So if you want to talk about laziness – most days while teaching I missed my luchbreak completely to do extra (free) classes and took it if I had a free period in the afternoon or else after school finished – one advantage being I was quite thin! (how many overweight teachers do you see?!)
One consequence of this vote is that lecturers will be required to attend college during the TUI Conference because the second week of Easter hols is now cancelled. So, what will the TUI do now if the third level cannot attend? Dilemma!
Haddington rd is not about reform, same service carried out in longer hours, Government should have asked for work evaluation and easier methods of letting people go, cutting the dead weight from top down now that would have saved money and improved services! It woukd go along way in changing the preception of staff in public service if the slackers were let go too! im a public servent I work hard and am good at what I do, so I wouldnt be worried but there are plenty who should!
Ryan, erm….. what is wrong with you? Your statements are quite bizarre and bear no relation to reality. Maybe you just don’t understand the job of teaching; maybe you believe the corrupt government/media spin; maybe you cannot read/research facts and think for yourself, but there is something terribly wrong with you.
This is a proud moment for my union, the ASTI. I am a principal of a large, dual union school. It will be a nightmare to implement with ASTI and TUI side by side. Teachers cannot take more pay cuts. Quinn should have achieved much more by: 1. Expect teachers to be on site throughout the working week, available to management for planning etc. 2. Abolish Croke Park hrs 3. Ask each teacher to teach an additional teaching hour, to be used to redress the guidance cuts and special needs etc 4. Keep paying teachers for the Supervision and Substitution at current rates. 5. Restore proper and modern management structure for schools to support principals and provide a reasonable career structure for young teachers. 6. Restore proper starting rates of pay for new teachers.
Principals’ should not cooperate in the systematic destruction of their schools.
I agree with a lot of that, but not with requiring teachers to be on site during the working week. Teachers spend a lot of time on site during the working week outside their teaching hours, but I wouldn’t it to be formalised. Flexibility has worked well so far. If you force teachers to be on site all day every day, they will – but they won’t be there on Saturday for the match, or in the evening for the school concert….
A lot of goodwill has been lost in this whole debacle, that would be a sure way to lose even more.
The unions are in bed with Labour so outcomes like this are hardly going to be surprising.
Haddington has not cut PS pay sufficiently. Reform of the sector is badly needed as this country bleeds to death financially.
In their deluded bubble they are hard working martyrs Eric, they really believe that.,they are that disconnected from reality
Only delusion on this forum so far is coming from you Ryan.
The financial issues of this country were not caused nor will they be solved by cutting PS sector pay. Public sectors workers have given more than most other sectors.
Labours weakness in government has allowed the middle classes to be hammered while FG financial backers who hold a far bigger responsibility get away scott free. Imagine someone earning 35k is taxed the same as 350k, people forget that when the USC was introduced for the old levy system people earning over 120k actually had to pay less!!!
Yes Ryan, in my “deluded bubble” on my way to work in Dublin 5, as I passed the girls in East wall in tracksuit bottomswith expensive buggies costing three times the price of my son’s, where I rented a delapidated house for €900 a month back in 2008, as I dropped my son off in a creche which cost €900 a month and then worked hard and felt a real sense of pride and satisfaction when my weakest students surpassed themselves and did really well in their Leaving Cert exams, did grinds after school to make up enough to buy food and pay the bills (without which we would not have made ends meet), YES, in that mad little bubble of mine I occasionally daydreamed about quitting for a life of social welfare. As a single mother I might have done pretty well for myself. For sure better that I was doing financially in my teaching career. But I got my arse up and out of bed every day for my son and that job that I loved. On my wall is a carved wooden bowl made my a monk from ash wood that comes from a forest right beside where Mary Robinson grew up. I got it for achieving first class honours in my art teaching H. Dip and every time I look at it, it reminds me why I went into this job – for the students. That doesn’t mean I should expect to work for less that it takes to pay the rent and my son’s creche, which I did in 2009.
You’re fairly deluded yourself Ryan.
Spouting absolute brown about the teaching profession based on your experience with the DSP.
Apples & Oranges lad, cop yourself on
Ryan I invite you to come join me for a day in my school and put yourself in my shoes!! I guarantee it won’t be long till you change your narrow minded opinion!! Up the ASTI!!! Finally we got it right!!
In the words of father dougal Maguire:
‘We’re all goin to heaven lads, wahaaaayyyy’
What am I missing here. Is haddington road only cutting pay for people above €65k or is there more too it
Same old problem, people think they’re experts at everything without having the slightest clue in reality.
Fact is that haddington road has just reinforced the idea of hardworking, effective teachers subsidising useless ones because nobody can be fired and the pay cuts will be reinstated. I wish people actually bothered to inform themselves. Instead they jump on the bandwagon of”voting no is the selfish thing to do”, when in fact it’s the exact opposite. Voting no would actually mean more reform. This country makes me sick at times.
Bugger!
Does anyone know how lectures voted in TUI.??
have your say