After decades of Social Partnership, and the disastrous engagement with the Government by the leadership of ICTU in the past year, it is clear that the protection of our conditions must not be left in the hands of those who neither understand nor appreciate the work of teachers and lecturers.

The TUI must assert and hold to the principle that we, and we alone, negotiate our conditions.

While a lot of attention had been paid to the attack on conditions at second level, the recommendations in Towards 2016 and the McCarthy Report in respect of third level conditions, and the demands from commentators such as Don Thornhill, for a new academic contract with increases in the weekly lecturing load, the length of the academic year, and the range of duties, are part of a sustained attack on our members’ conditions, and must be answered and resisted with determination and confidence.

There can be no moves towards a new academic contract while the recent pay cuts remain in place. The so-called transformation agenda is nothing more than a Government plan to reduce expenditure by asset stripping the Public Service, and until such time as pay levels have been fully restored it must not be considered.

I know that in many Colleges the response of members in the Trades area to the current downturn has been imaginative and timely.  However, the failure of the HEA to engage adequately with the TUI in formulating a coherent and forward looking plan for the Trades area, despite commitments to do so, has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.  There is a real danger that the HEA will overshoot the downturn with respect to cutting provision.  TUI must ensure that Colleges maintain sufficient capacity and facilities to respond to needs.

When the Institutes of Technology Industrial Relations Forum was established, I remember envying members who did not have to rely on the existing Conciliation and Arbitration mechanism for teachers.  Experience has shown, however, that the official side has refused for years to participate meaningfully, or on the basis of goodwill.  A total renewal of the C and A scheme for IoT employees is needed.

We welcomed the publication of the ICTU ten point plan, called “there is a better fairer way”, and we noted that a stated priority of that plan is protecting jobs and tackling unemployment.  This must include protection for the jobs of our members, and a response to the dramatically increasing national unemployment level, based on the recommendations set out in the National Skills Strategy, which requires a commitment by the Government to significant investment in upskilling

The institutions where our members work in Further, Adult, and Third Level Education can and do provide a high quality and economically valuable service.  These providers have a proven track record of rapid response to local employment needs.  They provide internationally recognised qualifications as well as progression routes from one level to another.  They are ideally placed to assist workers in upgrading their qualifications, and in taking the One Step Up which the Government wants.

For this reason they must be central to any plan to educate, retrain and up-skill people during the recession,  if our community is to have a suitably educated workforce to work our way out of the recession; and if we are to avoid having to import a suitably skilled workforce.

A strategy for increasing the educational levels throughout the workforce is called for in the National Skills Strategy and the TUI has set out our strategy in a six point plan titled How Education can Kick-Start Economic Recovery.

This is a plan to make access to and participation in Further, Adult, and Third Level Education a priority in stimulating Economic Recovery.

There can be no justification for the commitment of additional taxpayers’ money to bodies which are under investigation, while the public education sector remains under resourced, and has to turn away people who come to us looking for the service which we are willing to provide but are prevented from so doing as a result of Government policy.