Sir, – I am a recently qualified post-primary teacher, with a disinclination to emigrate because of family circumstances. Thus I would be delighted if the Government brought in a scheme that gave guaranteed employment to new teachers for a salary of €22,000, similar to what is being mooted for the nursing profession.
I suspect there is no chance of such an initiative being proposed as the teaching unions would be dead set against it. In that case you would have the strange scenario of union officials on multiples of €22,000 declaring that, to prevent exploitation, I and others should conceivably have no income (I’m not eligible for dole) rather than a living wage that would also give me valuable experience.
It is all, to use a politically incorrect phrase, “a bit Irish”. – Yours, etc,