THE UNION of Students in Ireland has called on the Government to renegotiate the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and reform.
The USI says current pay levels – including “excessive” salary levels for university presidents and other senior academics – are no longer sustainable.
According to the union, the Croke Park deal will allow the highest earning public servants to “sit safely in their ivory towers while countless others struggle to make ends meet”.
The move comes after last week’s Budget imposed a 33 per increase in student fees from September. Students will pay a contribution fee of €2,000.
The USI move reflects anger among students about what they see as the “excessive” earnings of many senior third level figures.
In their statement outlining opposition to Croke Park yesterday, the USI cited last month’s Irish Times survey of pay levels in the education sector.
This found that more than 60 staff in the education sector earn in excess of €150,000 per annum. A further 476 staff earn in excess of €110,000.
In all, 497 people are on the professorial salary scale €113,573-€145,952.
USI president Gary Redmond said yesterday that more than 75 per cent of the €8.59 billion education budget was absorbed by pay and pensions.
“This means that all other education services must be funded from the €2.14 billion non-pay element of the budget.”
Overall, Ireland has one of the lowest levels of education spending in the OECD, ranking it close to the bottom of international league tables when it comes to spending in relation to GDP.
Mr Redmond said an additional 5 per cent of non-pay related funding to education was cut by the Government in last week’s Budget.
“Frontline services to students, such as library budgets, funding for career guidance and student health, are suffering, while the highest paid figures in education continue to earn hundreds of thousands of euro – many multiples of their European counterparts,” Mr Redmond said.
A recent Red C poll for the UCD students union showed that more than 65 per cent of the public favoured a renegotiation of the Croke Park deal. This figure rose to 75 per cent among students.
Mr Redmond said that while the USI acknowledged the need for urgent public sector reform, the pay and pension provisions of the Croke Park deal were not sustainable in current economic circumstances.
“USI is calling on the Government to renegotiate the Croke Park agreement by moving public sector pay more in line with the new economic realities of today. However, any renegotiation must start with those at the top of the pay scale and must not simply target the lower earners.
“With parents having to decide which of their children to send to college, families struggling to put food on the table and soaring levels of emigration and long-term unemployment, we cannot have a situation where the gap between rich and poor continues to increase.”
The Croke Park agreement promises no pay cuts for public servants until 2014 in return for modernisation measures which will deliver significant savings.