In the Eye of the Storm

Find out what Brian Cowen thinks is in store for Ireland in light of the global financial crisis and the government's unpopular decisions on medical cards and education cuts.

Jason O'Toole, 06 Nov 2008

Your government is facing another crisis now over cutbacks in education. Will there be – like there was with the medical card controversy – another u-turn here?

There’s an increase in teachers’ pay next year that the Minister has to provide for – it’s unavoidable. It’s an extra €300million. A lot of money. There’s also an increased €40million for other people working in the education system as well. About a third of a billion has to be found just to stand still. What’s being asked here of the teaching profession, who I hold in high regard, is that we go back to the teaching schedule of September 2007 for the school years of 2009 and 2010 – that we increase the pupil-teacher ratio by one, both in primary and post-primary. The teaching schedule of 2007 is far better in terms of number of teachers per students etc. that was the case five or ten years ago. It will not undermine the ability to continue with the very high standards of teaching and learning that are being provided in our schools. I believe that the teachers’ unions should sit down with the Minister, work through the issues with him and come up with the implementation of the proposals so that it can work on the ground.

A lot of people disagree with that analysis. Is there going to be room for negotiation?

There isn’t room for negotiation in terms of the fact that the Minister has to provide savings to balance the increased spending he has to now contend with. He has to find savings and he’s outlined the way he can find them. I would make the point that in other departments – as part of getting the public service to contribute to payroll cost-savings as well, which is happening in the private sector where people are losing jobs to try and cut costs – we’re saying that in many departments there’ll be a 4% savings on payrolls and pension costs. The Department of Education is asking for something less than 1% in payroll savings in education. We can’t have a situation where people are saying, ‘Our area is such that it has to be immune to savings’. The scale of our problem is such that that argument doesn’t hold, given the budgetary realties that we have to deal with. We have to manage our way through this recession and get out of the far side of it with more revenues coming into the Exchequer because we will have to continue to invest in education. We all recognize the importance of education. There are thousands of more teachers now in our classrooms and millions of euros have gone into building better schools and refurbishing schools. There has been a huge investment programme in education and that will continue. In fact, there is a 25% increase in our capital budget for education next year.

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