The part played by teachers in the creation of a well educated workforce has been crucial to the inward investment which has fuelled Ireland's economic turnaround. Yes, there were other factors, but the part played by a well educated workforce has been central.
Many workers have benefitted from the boom - through better working conditions, higher salaries, fringe benefits, profit-sharing and bonus payments.
Teachers should be enjoying increased reward, recognition and status. Yet there is evidence that their status, far from rising, is declining, and they appear to be forgotten in the share-out of new national wealth and wellbeing. Traditionally teachers were well respected by the public, in spite of being closely controlled by both Church and State. While they were never well paid, teachers' salaries were enough to purchase homes and support families. Status came from hard work and a tradition of service to the local community, often under very trying conditions.
Increasingly, status largely equates with salary, which dictates how a person lives and - never more so than today - where a person lives. Teacher shortages, particularly in urban areas, are clear evidence that young teachers are unable to take up employment in schools due to the impossibility of buying a house or paying exorbitant rents.
Basic salary must, at the very least, enable teachers to teach where they are needed.
Teachers' salaries must also be enough to stop an emerging flight from teaching, as many leave to take up work in higher-paid employments that offer better career structures and prospects. This trend must be reversed through the introduction of increased rewards and an enhanced career structure to ensure the recruitment, motivation and retention of able, flexible and dedicated teachers.
Given teachers' contribution to Ireland's current prosperity, this is clearly in the national interest.
Teachers have long accepted conditions that others would not tolerate. They have worked with inadequate resources, without lunchbreaks and in substandard buildings. When was there last an outcry about substandard schools to match the outcry which greeted the opening of the last Dail term, when some computers, phones and faxes were not in place on time?
Improvements in this area were continually promised when economic circumstances permitted. It is now time to appoint, in every school, secretarial and caretaking staff, and to provide the resources necessary to deliver a curriculum for the 21st century. If £400 million can be found for a sports stadium hosting 12 matches a year, cannot a case be made for investment in our schools?
Teachers have delivered a professional service, yet this professionalism is eroded by a Government policy failure that allows hundreds of unqualified personnel to work in schools on a daily basis.
Would any other profession allow this? Would clients of any other service accept this?
It says a great deal about the status of children, and it means that teachers work harder to support untrained personnel. Urgent action on this situation is needed - not only to provide qualified teachers but to bring down class sizes, which remain the highest in the developed world.
Teachers' claims for fair pay are unheeded, despite the fact that they have played their part in national recovery in terms of pay restraint, extra workloads and deferring delivery on improvements in conditions of service. They have accepted new roles, tasks and responsibilities. The tradition of quality service and hard work continues. A new curriculum is being introduced with new subjects and radical approaches to existing subjects. These mean substantial extra work for teachers, who have nevertheless welcomed and indeed led curriculum development.
However, that does not mean that they should be expected to implement such change without proper reward for the extra work and responsibility entailed.
Such an argument is not unreasonable. Teachers have provided a platform for Ireland's economic prosperity. The continuing contribution of teachers is required to develop the economy on a sustainable basis and underpin future prosperity. It is time to invest some of our newfound prosperity in all our futures.
John Carr is general treasurer of the INTO
