§ MR. EDWARD BARRY (Cork County, S.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether teachers completing their course of training in the year 1900, when new rules were issued, have since got special consideration given to their cases; whether such teachers being induced to join the service by the belief that the rules and salaries existing at the time of their entry would be continued have not been misled and injured by the changes made in the year 1900, and which, if issued earlier, would have kept many of them out of the service; whether, seeing that those men feel that there has been a breach of contract with them, steps will be taken to have the cases of all men who completed a two years' course of training in the year 1900 fully inquired into; whether he is aware that W. J. Murphy, of Coolmountain National School, Dunmanway, is one of those teachers, and that on appointment to principalship this man lost the bonus which he would get as assistant after five years' service, and has had no other increase to his salary;
† See (4) Debates, clviii., 1155.45 and, seeing that this is a type of the favourable consideration which the Commissioners give to those teachers induced to join the profession under false pretences, he will say what action he proposes to take.
MR. BRYCEThe Commissioners of National Education inform me that the reply to the first inquiry is in the affirmative. They tell me that since the foundation of the system they have made many changes in the mode of promoting teachers and of remunerating them, that all teachers entering the service know that the rules of the service are subject to change from time to time, that the teachers have not been misled or injured by the new rules, and, indeed, that most of the changes made in 1900 had been agitated for by the teachers themselves for years before. This was the case especially with regard to the abolition of the results payment system and of the system of promotion by examination: the introduction of the consolidated salary with periodic increments; and the freedom of instruction in the schools. The new regulations would, in the Commissioners' opinion, have been subjected to precisely the same criticisms if issued earlier as they were when issued in 1900. There has, the Commissioners inform me, been no breach of contract with the teachers either generally or individually. The vested rights of all teachers in the service prior to 1900 were conserved, so far as it was possible to do so, by regulations made for the purpose, and all exceptional cases were specially considered. I am forwarding to the hon. Member full particulars of the case of Mr. Murphy. His present income as principal teacher is higher than it would have been if he had remained an assistant teacher, and he is eligible for promotion to the first grade, whereas if he had remained an assistant he could not have proceeded beyond the third grade. These matters are within the control of the Commissioners and do not call for action on the part of the Irish government.