The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) today highlighted that with the new so-called pension levy, teachers would effectively be paying up to 27% of salary in pension contributions.

TUI is encouraging as many members as possbile to take part in Saturday’s ICTU-organised demonstration for “A Better, Fairer Way.”

Members of the 14,500 strong union are particularly angered by the campaign of misinformation which implies that teachers already make no contribution to their pension.

Speaking today, TUI General Secretary Peter MacMenamin said:

“There has been considerable flawed discourse in recent weeks regarding the contribution made by teachers to their pension.

Effectively, pension contributions following the imposition of any new pension levy will range from between 22% to 27% of the income of teachers.

This staggering figure contrasts with public perception fuelled by certain politicians, employers’ groups and elements within the media that the public service worker contributes nothing to their pensions.

• Teachers already pay a pension levy of 6.5%

• The Public Services Benchmarking Body (PSBB) whose job it was to compare the pay of public service workers with those in the private sector issued its findings in December 2007 and concluded that a discount of 12% of salary should be applied when making this comparison due to the pension provisions. Subsequently there was no ‘real’ monetary award to the majority of public service workers – they paid a substantial hidden pension levy instead.

• The new so called pension levy - ranging from 3% to 9.6% dependent on income - would bring the total contribution to pension of teachers from between 22% to 27% of the income of public service workers.

Ludicrously, this new levy is structured in a way that means that in some cases a public server worker earning €10,000 less than another will end up actually paying a bigger levy.

So not only have public service workers been targeted by this measure, but those unfortunate enough to be on certain salary levels will be penalised more than others on higher salaries in similar circumstances.

A teacher on €39,000 per annum will lose €2,030 after tax as a result of the levy (5.2% of pay) while one in similar circumstances on €42,000 will lose €1,671 (3.98% of pay) and a teacher in similar circumstances earning €48,000 will lose €1,992 (4.18% of pay) – still less in both percentage and in actual terms than the colleague on €39,000. 

This brand of reverse economics sought by government is now set to become a nightmare reality for public servants.

The anger of our members at this flawed imposition is intensifying rather than abating.

Those wealthy individuals responsible for engineering these severe difficulties have still not been made accountable while ordinary workers, many of them already struggling financially before this imposition, are targeted for further savage treatment.”