Anne Conway 

Below is the text of the letter delivered to the ICTU  on 19th May 2009 by a delegation from Dublin City Post Primary Branch of the Teachers Union of Ireland. The ICTU executive were meeting the following day.   The delegation was led by Branch officers and supported by branch members. The DCPP has approximately 1000 members and the delegation was representing the branch. 

Letter contents as follows: 

For the Attention of Executive Committee of the ICTU 

We are members of the Teachers Union of Ireland (Dublin City Post Primary Branch).   This correspondence represents the policy of the TUI as agreed at out recent national Congress and of the DCPP branch. We wish to inform the Executive Committee of the ICTU of the following: 

In the next few weeks up to two thousand teachers in classrooms around the country face job losses or reductions in teaching hours. This will have a devastating effect on the quality of education delivered to pupils and students in our schools and colleges and on the livelihood of teachers. 

At the recent TUI Congress, delegates unanimously called for the ICTU to immediately end talks with Government and campaign against the attacks on member’s living standards. It rejected the cuts in education, the pension levy, the income levies, and the draconian measures contained in the budget which will have the effect of consigning future generations to unemployment and low pay. 

Today we are calling for decisive action from the trade union leadership. The banks are being bailed out while our education system is being dismantled. We oppose the creation of the National Assets Management Agency which is predicted to cost the tax payer at a minimum 24 billion. PAYE workers and the young people we teach will pay for this folly for decades to come. 

We call on the ICTU to state unequivocally that they will oppose NAMA as it will reward and continue the practices that have brought the country to its knees. 

The TUI Congress also called for a Special Conference of the ICTU as a matter of urgency to oppose these attacks.   Our children have one chance of an education, one chance in each year. If a child does not receive the help they should in any one year, it cannot be retrieved and later made up to them.   We need a first rate education system to be the priority of the ICTU no matter what economic hardships we might face.  We cannot afford not to do so. It is the ICTU’s responsibility to defend teachers’ jobs and to deliver the education system our students deserve. 

The letter was signed by the DCCP branch Chairperson. 

Those present on the delegation felt that it was a successful initiative. We received support from UCD students.  Further delegations are definitely required and could be combined from a range of branches.