Ninth Level Ireland

“Following major backlash from postgraduate students, Trinity’s Finance Committee has confirmed the restoration of pay rates for casual staff to their previous levels. Last month, The University Times reported that Trinity’s casual workers – including many TAs and postgraduate students – were facing pay cuts of almost 20% for their teaching duties …” (more)

[Alex Connolly, University Times, 3 March]

“PhD students have expressed their anger during a townhall meeting this evening at a decision approved by College’s finance committee to cut the pay of casual staff who work as lab demonstrators. The decision to cut pay was temporarily reversed on Tuesday at a meeting of the finance committee, and a final decision has been deferred to a future meeting …” (more)

[Finn Purdy, Shannon Connolly and Madalyn Williams, Trinity News, 5 February]

“The next government is facing potentially more industrial unrest in schools as the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) on Tuesday said it expected its members to resoundingly back industrial action in a forthcoming ballot. About 450 second level schools as well as institutes of technology and centres of further education were closed on Tuesday as a result of a one-day stoppage by members of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) over lower pay arrangements for staff recruited since 2011 …” (more)

[Martin Wall and Sarah Burns, Irish Times, 4 February]

“Trinity has rowed back on its decision to cut the hourly teaching pay of students and staff employed on a casual basis, hours after postgraduates protested against the reduction outside a meeting of the College’s Finance Committee. The decision was made at today’s meeting of the committee, as nearly 80 postgraduate students protested against the pay cuts outside House One …” (more)

[Donal MacNamee and Cormac Watson, University Times, 4 February]

“The Chair of the Kerry branch of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland says members will be reluctantly taking to the picket line today. Over 400 members of the TUI in Kerry will strike today as part of an ongoing row with Government over what the union says is a two-tier pay system, which is discriminatory and unfair for new entrants …” (more)

[Radio Kerry, 4 February]

“Trinity’s casual workers – including many TAs and postgraduate students – could face pay cuts of almost 20% for their teaching duties, The University Times has learned. An internal memorandum circulated at Trinity’s Finance Committee, obtained by The University Times, shows some areas of casual pay may be cut by between 10% and 20% …” (more)

[Donal MacNamee, University Times, 3 February]

“Teaching staff at both Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) and O’Fiaich College and Institute of Further Education are set to engage in strike action tomorrow (Tuesday), after talks at the Workplace Relations Commission failed to produce any progress in a long running dispute over what the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) describe as ‘pay discrimination’ …” (more)

[Donard McCabe, Dundalk Democrat, 3 February]

“Secondary School union the ASTI has dismissed suggestions strike action by TUI members amounts to election blackmail. Hundreds of schools are set to close tomorrow due to strike action by the Teachers Union of Ireland over pay parity for new entrants …” (more)

[Irish Examiner, 3 February]

“Bonus points for honours Mandarin in the Leaving Cert – the first exams are coming in 2022 – may seem an unlikely vote-grabber, but it is among the pre-election promises from Fianna Fail …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 29 January]

“Public servants face the threat of stagnant wages under Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil plans for a new pay deal, the Fórsa union has warned. The largest public sector union said the main political parties will face a ‘very difficult negotiation’ on a wage agreement in power based on their spending plans …” (more)

[Anne-Marie Walsh, Independent, 27 January]

“Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have gone to war over the cost of the next public sector pay deal. With two weeks to go until election day, the two main parties launched attacks on each other’s approach to the forthcoming talks with public sector unions …” (more)

[Philip Ryan, Independent, 26 January]

“The Department of Public Expenditure has said it will consider ‘in due course’ whether thousands of teachers who are scheduled to go on strike next month will face financial penalties. About 19,000 members of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) are to stage a one-day stoppage on February 4th, which is likely to lead to the closure of hundreds of second-level schools …” (more)

[Martin Wall and Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 20 January]

“Thousands of teachers who are members of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) are to go on strike on Tuesday, February 4th. The one-day strike, just days before the general election, is over what the union described as the Government’s ‘ongoing failure to eliminate the injustice of pay discrimination’ …” (more)

[Martin Wall, Irish Times, 17 January]

“Industrial strife resumes. After a couple of years of industrial peace, the prospect of disruption looms. Two-tier pay rates introduced in 2011 put ‘newly qualified teachers’ on inferior rates of pay. A decade later, the issue still hasn’t been fully resolved …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 7 January]

“The Taoiseach has said he expects public sector pay to rise higher than the rate of inflation. Leo Varadkar said he anticipates pay increases in the public sector in 2020 but they must be linked to reform. The Government has adopted a series of ‘one-size-fits-all’ deals with public service unions covering pay, conditions and reforms across the entire public sector over the past decade …” (more)

[Irish Examiner, 29 December]

“Unique universities: now the only place where senior public officers can live abroad, have few checks on expenses and tax, and benefit personally from public funding of gene patents. The exploitation of tax funds for private personal gains by state sector employees, particularly at universities. UCC as example. The public is funding things like applications for human gene patents …” (more)

[Indymedia Ireland, 21 December]

“Irish third-level institutions are to be affected by strikes and other actions over pay and conditions in the coming months. This comes as lecturers and researchers in 60 universities across the UK and Northern Ireland began an eight day strike on Monday over pensions, pay and conditions …” (more)

[TheJournal.ie, 1 December]

“The possibility that no public service pay agreement will be in place to follow the current deal when it expires at the end of next year has been raised by Fórsa at a meeting of ICTU’s Public Service Committee, which represents most unions with members in the public sector. The union’s general secretary Kevin Callinan today (Thursday) said Fórsa and other unions needed to prepare for the possibility, while urging the Government to inject more urgency into addressing problems with the current Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) …” (more)

[Fórsa, 28 November]

“UCD academics are paid some of the highest salaries in the country as well as having greater pay packages than their international counterparts. This may be due to UCD being recently ranked low in international research tables and if the university provides higher salaries to researchers and academics this positioning can be improved …” (more)

[Adam O’Sullivan, College Tribune, 24 November]

“Senior academics have little confidence in the governance and management capacity of their own higher education institutions, according to a new survey. It also finds many are sceptical over the Government’s ambition to provide the best education system in Europe over the next decade. The findings are contained in a survey of more than 340 senior staff in higher education institutions and agencies by the polling firm Prospectus …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 20 November]