Blow for Donohoe’s public pay deal as primary teachers say no

FINANCE Minister Paschal Donohoe’s proposed pay deal with public servants has received a blow after primary school teachers voted against it.

The Irish National Teachers Organisation rejected the pact, negotiated last month, with 19,172 of the union’s 36,272 members voting it down.

It now remains to be seen what the other large teacher unions will decide to do about the State worker pay proposals, expected to cost the State €300million and curb hopes for tax cuts.

Members of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland and the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland in the secondary sector remain to be balloted.

The INTO called on members to reject the terms as they did not tackle pay equality for new entrant teachers.

INTO General Secretary Sheila Nunan, said the vote highlighted just how unacceptable the terms of the new agreement were for its members.

‘While progress was made in recent years on pay equality this was not continued in the recent pay talks,’ she said. ‘There was an opportunity to draw a line under discrimination and right a wrong imposed on entrant teachers.

‘The proposed agreement does not signal an end to pay inequality.’

While the rejection is a blow to the Government, it is expected that the deal will still go ahead after the two biggest unions, Siptu and Impact, backed it to their members.