Dear Editor,

As a rank and file second level teacher, I'd like to make some points on the early retirement aspect of the package recently rejected by members of the ASTI and TUI.

I started teaching at the age of 21 and since then have taken two years off Under the existing superannuation scheme I can buy back the national service I need (i.e. non teaching years) in order to retire at 60 on full pension and full gratuity.

Under the new deal I cannot buy back notional service. Therefore I will be 58 before I can retire early, not on full gratuity and pension, but on 35/80ths. In other words, by not waiting another two years I stand to lose substantially. There are many teachers in a similar situation to mine. Why would we vote for such a package.

"Retirement at 55, was the magic - and ephemeral - promise. What second level teacher would have 35 years service done at that age? The one who left school for university at 16? The (rare) practical subject teacher who qualified at 20 and started teaching immediately? (In my community school, out of a staff of 64, there is only one such person. In most schools there is none.)

There are alternative routes. We can make a declaration bf imcompetence or we can suffer from incurable stress. And it has to be incurable, otherwise we must return to the situation that caused the stress in the first place. Who would vote for early retirement at 55, when either we cannot avail of it at all, or can only avail of it with great loss of pride and self esteem?

For the new generation of second level teachers the future is even bleaker. Many of them will have done their Leaving Cert after a six year cycle and will not qualify to teach until they are 22/23. It can take them years to get a bob with superannuation prospects. When will they be eligible for early retirement? When will they be eligible for any retirement?

As a member of the ASTI, I appreciate the excellent job the union has done over the years to improve pay and conditions and to represent the members with integrity. I've no doubt it will continue to do so.

Finally, I think it is unfair to suggest, as some critics have done, that these second level teachers who rejected the deal did not understand it. All our teaching lives are spent working out difficult topics and clarifying them for our students. We would hardly do less for ourselves.

I think we understood the early retirement package only too well. We saw that what was paraded for our admiration and acceptance was in fact no more than the emperor's new clothes.

Yours, Roebuck Road, Clonskeagh,

Dublin 14.