Responding to an ESRI report that recommends public sector pay cuts, the TUI said that the public sector has already been completely asset stripped over the last 12 months and described any further pay cuts as ‘unacceptable’.

Speaking this morning, TUI Deputy General Secretary Annette Dolan said:

“Teachers and lecturers have already been denied pay increases for which they gave productivity in return. They have already suffered considerable pay cuts in the form of the unilateral pension levy across the public service, and promotion opportunities have been frozen with the moratorium on public service appointments.

Due to the cut in the pupil teacher ratio and various other swingeing cutbacks, the hours of thousands of part time teachers and lecturers have been cut so severely that they are struggling to pay their bills.

Hundreds of other part-time teachers have been let go and now have little option but to sign on the Live Register. Newly qualified teachers who have contacted us say that their only hope of a job is to emigrate.

It is ludicrous and unacceptable to suggest that conditions of service of teachers and lecturers and the education service offered to our children can afford to be asset stripped again.

The Government and its various think tanks are still reluctant to move towards a progressive taxation system that would ensure equity for all.

Despite the events of the recent past, it is obvious that they are intent on making the general public and children of tomorrow responsible for the mistakes of the policy makers, banking executives and developers who have left us in the this precarious position.”

TUI is in agreement with ESRI that “cutbacks in the sector could hinder the academic progress of immigrants and work against their social integration.”

Deputy General Secretary Annette Dolan stated that “ unless we invest in supporting intercultural education  in our schools and colleges we will be faced  with an alarming increase in racism, in neighbourhoods throughout this country.”