Two Lecturers in TCD with long service have been made redundant and a long serving member of the Library staff has also been issued with notice of dismissal.

Mike Jennings, General Secretary of IFUT, said that “last year, IFUT members, with considerable reluctance, voted to endorse the Croke Park Agreement following detailed clarifications from the Department of Education as to how its provisions would apply in the university sector.

“In return for agreeing to substantial extra productivity and input, we were guaranteed no job losses and no further pay cuts on top of the substantial reductions already suffered by staff. The authorities in TCD have, in spectacular fashion, broken this agreement. No party to an agreement could be expected to continue to honour it when the other party so blatantly welshes on their commitments.

“This dispute will, at IFUT’s request, now be investigated by the Labour Court in March. Until then, IFUT is putting its participation in Croke Park on hold”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

“Our members were very wise not to accept the original proposal which was like being asked to buy a pig in a poke. But, by their vote today, they have indicated that the hard work put in by IFUT negotiators at national level has delivered a much less damaging and more tolerable set of proposals”, said Mike Jennings, IFUT General Secretary.

The results announced by IFUT today were as follows: 83.5% voted in favour and 16.5% voted against the clarified deal. There was a 42% turnout.

Mike Jennings said: “IFUT hopes that following this vote the focus will now shift to the massive productivity savings already given quite freely and generously by our members in recent years. The result is that we have a world-class system, which is providing higher education to more students than ever before in Ireland’s history, and it is being provided with drastically reduced resources, including significant pay cuts.”

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

“Irish universities and academic staff have consistently delivered above-average outcomes for students, despite diminishing resources. Mr Hennessy now wishes to fix what isn’t broken by imposing new and potentially damaging HR changes on top of ongoing staffing and wage cuts, at a time when ever-more students are enrolling at third-level. He should preferably reacquaint himself with the facts on higher education in Ireland before issuing such cavalier and unhelpful comments in future”, Mr Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Recent suggestions regarding the public service being ‘not fit for purpose’ do not apply to the universities and their academic staff; instead, levels of productivity are being increased amid income cuts of up to 25%, Dr Hugh Gibbons, President of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), states in an address to be delivered to the organisation’s Annual Conference in Dublin today (Saturday, 16 April).

“Over the last two years, university staff numbers have been cut by six percent. This figure does not include staff who retired early under the Incentivised Scheme for Early Retirement (ISER), who cannot be replaced. There is now a drastically reduced number of academic staff in the Universities, most departments are struggling to overcome the reduced level of staff and some departments are near closure.

“While it was traditionally the case that Irish Universities operated at half the cost per student of compared to the UK, over the last two years a combination of public service pay cuts, the pension levy other levies and the recent universal social charge, has resulted in pay cuts in the order of 25%.

“In addition, due to the ban on promotions, many international academics who came to Ireland have begun returning to their home country, depleting resources still further.

“These staffing and wage cuts are occurring at a time when ever-more students are enrolling at third-level. Yet the efficiency and quality of the Irish Higher Education sector is acknowledged by the EU in a recent ECOFIN report, which states that, considering their size, Finland, Ireland and Sweden are the countries with more universities pointed out by peers as being excellent”, Dr Gibbons said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Commenting on a report in The Irish Times on 4 March last, IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said there is no evidence whatever to support suggestions that the Department of Education has ‘lost patience’ with the Federation. “Rather, it has been IFUT that has expressed unease at the ’slow bicycle race’ nature of the process and it would appear that other vested interests have adopted an approach of ‘getting their retaliation in first’. In addition, IFUT wishes to clarify that it has not expressed criticism of NUIG proposals, as suggested in the article”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Media Release is available here.

Discussing the third-level education sector, Kieran Mulvey – who was appointed the first General Secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers in 1975, when he was aged 24 – said: “I believe we have always placed a tremendous value on the provision of education in this country. I am not an advocate of the introduction of multinational business practices within third-level education, nor do I believe in the Professor Ed Walsh school of “edunomics” or the creation of “management clusters” around University Presidents. I believe that performance and achievement indicators are necessary and that the highest benchmarks are to be achieved. Third-level institutions are seen as centres of excellence and indeed privilege at times. They must continue to deliver on the public expectations of them.

“Irish society, its political system and its institutions of Government need reform. We have to get it into our collective national psyche that we are not down and out internationally” said Kieran Mulvey. “Amidst the potential collapse of trust, respect and confidence in what was generally accepted as the pillars of society, Irish society is seeking to establish new standards, new values and more enduring moral political and financial benchmarks.

“Of concern for those of us who operate in the public service milieu is the abject and almost complete failure of the “light” regulation model, deficiencies in corporate governance standards and the lack of appropriate oversight in some state institutions. We need to see more transparent and effective action by the Office of Corporate Enforcement, disciplinary action by the professional bodies and the disbarment from directorships by those who corporately approved, signed off, or oversaw and supposedly-regulated corporate and financial failures.

“A real and thorough cleansing of the Augean stables is necessary. In this recession we can change from a society of greed, the accumulation of property and wealth and a culture of ‘me-féinism’ to a more-inclusive and less-vacuous society, with more redeemable, tangible and shared values. The one change I would advocate is the constitutional right of the people themselves to periodically vote on matters of national interest/policy in order to inform the legislature of the will of the people. It works in other well-established jurisdictions – most notably Switzerland.”

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here. Kieran Mulvey’s speech is available in full here.

“While recognising that there are some positives in the proposed agreement, the offer of a blank cheque for the renegotiation of staff contracts, with fundamental and far reaching implications for educational standards, is simply not acceptable,” IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, stated.

The Executive of IFUT also decided that the conditions of employment of its members will not be subject to aggregated vote by other unions on the proposed agreement and reserved the right to make whatever decisions are necessary if members’ jobs and conditions are put in jeopardy.

The matter will be put to a full ballot of the union’s members following its Annual Delegate Conference on 24 April next.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

The leadership of the unions is determined to reflect the anger of teachers at the budget cuts to salaries and changes to pensions through a sustained campaign of opposition.

The four unions said the unilateral imposition of a pay cut in the budget was completely incompatible with social partnership, which in the view of the four teacher unions is now over.

All of the unions categorically rejected out of hand any suggestion that talks on a transformation agenda could continue. The unions said Government had its chance to talk last week but spurned the opportunity. “Those talks are over,” said a spokesperson. “They will not be restarted.”

The joint Press Release is available in full here.

“If they cut our pay, they can hardly expect us to continue working as though nothing had happened. I expect that IFUT members will disengage from non-core duties, particularly in the administrative area”, said Mike Jennings, General Secretary.

IFUT will also re-ballot its members to take part in any national or education sector-wide strikes in opposition to a pay cut for these members.

“At a time when there are more students than ever before in Higher Education, a combination of the drastic understaffing caused by the misguided staffing embargo and the collapse of morale caused by the cut of pay seems guaranteed to do untold damage to the education system just when so many more people need it”, said Mr. Jennings, who was speaking following a meeting of the National Executive at the weekend.

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here.

“Government officials and trade unions negotiators had been achingly close to reaching an overall agreement which would have brought about an historic transformation of the public sector. By rejecting the deal, the Cabinet has returned us to the uncertainty and lack of direction that has plagued our economy and jobs market for over a year”, the General Secretary added.

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here.