Madam, – Coverage in today’s paper (April 15th) notes that the general secretary of a leading teachers union is “totally opposed to the Government forcing children to pay for the recklessness and greed of Ireland’s casino capitalists”.
Well, is it really the children that teachers are worried about? When I sat my Leaving Certificate in 2001, the secondary school pupils of the country were left at home as teachers picketed schools and threatened to ban work on all state exams. This was at the height of the boom when the teachers unions were jumping in with the “casino capitalists” and demanding a ludicrous 30 per cent pay increase before they would return to work.
I don’t think that teachers unions were thinking of student welfare or the future of our public finances then. Nor do I think they are concerned about them now.
Teachers in this country, by and large, do an excellent job. However, strike action will do nothing to alter the reality we face. No matter how we got into this mess, we must all do our part to get out of it. – Yours, etc.,