John Carr, Outgoing INTO General Secretary
Final speech to INTO Congress
6th April 2010
President, Ministers, distinguished guests, fellow teachers and friends.
Thank you Sheila and thank you Declan for your kind words.
Mark Twain once said he could live for two months on a compliment. On that basis I’ve a
good few years left in me yet!
I'd like to start by saying two simple words to all of you here today, two words that mean a
lot.
Thank you.
Thank you to all the members of the INTO, whether here today or back in your schools or
retired members that I worked with during my time in the INTO as a teacher, union activist or
full time official in Head Office.
You delegates, branch officers or committee members, national committee members or union
activists and supporters in your schools are the people who week in, week out, year in year
out do the work.
You take the criticism when it’s going, but don't often get the credit when that’s due. So
today let me acknowledge your contribution and say thank you. Thank you for all the help,
advice and assistance, asked for or offered, that you have generously given to me over those
years. But most of all thank you for your work on behalf of the INTO in schools up and
down the length of the country.
You are the brains, the heart and the backbone of this Organisation.
I think of the stone cutter, hammering away at her or his rock, perhaps a hundred times
without so much as a crack appearing. Then on the one hundred and first blow, it splits.
I know it was not that blow that did it but a combination of all the blows that had gone
before. I have not struck all the blows myself. I cannot claim all the achievements that Sheila
and Declan attributed to me today.
During my time many others struck blows. It is they who made my work look good.
You gave me the extraordinary honour and immense privilege of leading the INTO as general
secretary for the last decade. It has been a ten year journey traveled together from the start.
In the year 2000 when I put myself before you for election as INTO general secretary I
visited schools in every part of Ireland, met fellow teachers face to face in classrooms and
staffrooms and listened to your concerns. I went to INTO meetings, large and small, in every
single county and heard at first hand what you wanted from me and what you wanted from
the INTO.
That experience was one of the most challenging yet the most rewarding of my life. I drew
huge strength from seeing at first hand the wonderful professional work done by primary
teachers in small schools and large schools, in disadvantaged schools, special schools and in
schools grappling with an emerging newcomer population.
I met you in dilapidated and run down school buildings, in corridors in schools where there
were no staff rooms.
I heard your ambitions for your pupils, for our profession and for primary education.
I shared your anger at chronic underinvestment in primary education, at overcrowded classes
and at the total lack of support for special needs children.
I listened to your demands for a fair salary, reflective of your high quality professional work,
responsibilities and effort.
And for the last decade those memories of your agenda have sustained me, inspired me and
motivated me. Your reality became my reality, your worries became my worries and your
ambitions became my ambitions.
Together we fought for and got significant investment in school buildings. The process is
now more open and transparent and priorities have been identified.
Together we opposed the crude imposition for political purposes of national testing on all
children. We were successful because of your professionalism and understanding of
curriculum and assessment.
Together, we put class sizes in primary schools at the very top of the educational agenda. We
argued for improvements. We protested against cutbacks. Last year we celebrated a
significant reversal of those cutbacks. Our class sizes are smaller than ten years ago, but
nowhere near small enough.
We secured teachers for special needs children when we researched, argued for and achieved
the general allocation model. We campaigned on behalf of disadvantaged children, schools
and communities and on the side of newcomer children.
Leaders may lead a trade union. In the end it’s the members who deliver.
It’s not easy. Many of those gains can be reversed at the stroke of a pen. But the challenge of
keeping what we have worked so hard for now falls to a new generation of union activists.
Although I am leaving the pitch, I will be supporting you on from the stands.
Looking outside the INTO for minute on your behalf I have worked with many fine people
and I want to briefly mention some of them today.
I want to recognise the civil servants in the Department of Education and Skills led by Brigid
McManus. They are too numerous to mention by name but they are not nameless to me. We
have fought, argued and disagreed on many issues.
We have never disagreed on our shared ambition to deliver more for primary education.
I have seen at first hand their professionalism, hard work and dedication and also how they
are constrained by their political masters.
At a time when public service has been regularly attacked, even vilified, I want to put on
record my recognition and appreciation of their work.
Another group we have worked with in the Department is the Inspecorate. I wish Eamon
Stack well in his retirement and wish the new Chief Inspector Harold Hislop well in his new
role. In all his time in the inspectorate Harold has always been approachable, willing to
engage with us and long may this continue.
I want to recognise all of the management bodies I have worked with both past and present –
a sector of Irish society unsurpassed for voluntary commitment. I wish you all well in what
will certainly be a challenging time as you work to meet the needs of an ever more diverse
country.
I also want to acknowledge the work of the National Parents Council. I was on the Executive
when the NPC was established and have worked closely with many fine representatives for
the benefit of our pupils.
And I must also acknowledge some of the Ministers for Education I worked with. Micheal
Martin helped us to reduce the schedule from 35 to 30 in one go. Noel Dempsey and Mary
Hanafin heard our arguments, particularly on special education and delivered resources.
Minister Coughlan I wish you well. If the timing were different I have no doubt we’d be
called the Donegal mafia every time you deliver for primary education. Might even have
rivaled the gang in Drumcondra.
In my time I worked closely with many other unions particularly within the ICTU. I have
supported social partnership not as a blind principal but as a means to an end. Through it we
achieved not only salary increases for teachers and more investment in education but were
able to contribute to social cohesion.
We achieved the minimum wage now disgracefully under attack.
We opposed and will continue to oppose the race to the bottom in all employment especially
Irish Ferries.
I believe we must redouble our efforts to co-operate and work together because economic
recovery and social justice must go hand in hand and an attack on one group of workers is an
attack on all. Social solidarity is on our agenda – our challenge is to get it on the
government’s agenda.
To union friends and colleagues I say thank you for your friendship and support.
In the north there has been remarkable change and progress over the past decade. Education
is now but one of many issues on the social and political agenda that was once dominated
only by violence.
I applaud the decision of Caitriona Ruane and her predecessor to abolish the 11 plus.
The seeds of close links have been sown between the INTO and the UTU – I look forward to
the flowering of those seeds through the development of even closer co-operation in the
future. And I want to particularly thank Northern Sec Frank Bunting, his predecessor Al
Mackle with whom I worked and all the staff in Northern Office.
Thank you to the CEC, both present and past for a life time of support.
I estimate that I have attended more than 300 CEC meetings. Most lasted two days. That
means I spent two full years of my life working directly with elected teacher representatives
from all parts of the country. No wonder I never got out of touch!
Over the years we have many discussions, arguments and campaigns. At times we have
differed over tactics, policies or positions but never over principles. Working with them
taught me that the INTO is not all about conferences, congress meetings motions etc. It’s
about what goes on in schools in the heart of every townland and village, town and city in the
country.
Thank you to all in INTO Head Office, the most marvelous team of people it has ever been
my privilege to work with. I am not going to mention everyone by name. They know who
they are and they as well as you, know what they have done on our behalf and will continue
to do on your behalf. If we have made progress in the last decade then everything said about
me applies to them who journeyed with me every step of the way.
However I hope everyone will forgive me if I single out Liz and Ruth. Liz has worked with
me for 21 years.
There are still many challenges ahead.
Primary teaching is a quality public service. You must now convince government how much
better it could be if it was resourced to EU norms.
A simple example is that you are now educating the Google generation but only half the
schools in the country have proper access to broadband. Today's technology is stunning yet
government has failed to invest a red cent in teachers’ professional development.
Another is that child poverty is rising as scarce resources go to banks and developers instead
of to children and families.
I wish I could say I was departing with my agenda complete.
What progress we have made is down to working together as a united, focused and
determined trade union.
But now we must confront the fall out from the government’s failed economic policies. We
will need the same sense of unity, the same focus and the same determination.
There are more teachers, particularly in special education than there were a decade ago, but
not nearly enough overall.
Many school buildings have been improved in recent years but many still need to be
upgraded.
A revised curriculum is in place but without adequate government support for its on going
implementation.
We secured pay increases over the decade but last year this government attacked our living
standards not once but twice.
Because of this government’s policy of boom and bust economics our already under funded
public services and the men and women who work in them are now challenged as never
before.
In the 1980s the trade union movement played a significant part in making Ireland a wealthy,
fairer and more inclusive society. Renewing and reshaping that progressive spirit for today’s
challenges is the task that lies ahead.
The non-payment of Benchmarking for principals and deputy principals is one that hurts
most.
There is a debt registered against the government on behalf of principals and deputy
principals, a debt that must be paid. I hope you will be able to cash it in soon. But I say to you
that the human spirit is never beaten when it is defeated. It is only finished when it
surrenders. Don’t ever do that.
But I have always believed that it is better to negotiate hopefully than to arrive prematurely at
a dangerous impasse. We are there right now. The choices you will make in the coming
months will be vital, not just for teachers but for the country.
A final word of thanks goes to my family.
I want to particularly thank Joan for a lifetime of support, for her patience, her friendship and
her companionship. She lived, ate, slept and occasionally, who could blame her, drank INTO.
She is the rock on which our family thrived. They have all moved on now, there’s only one
standing on that rock.
Finally, a new team has been elected by you to take over at the helm of the INTO.
The torch of leading the INTO has passed to a new generation of elected officials and I wish
Sheila and Noel every success in the years ahead.
I bid you strong resolve and constant renewal of your strength and zeal for advancing the
interest of the primary teacher and the interest of primary education.
Mark Twain once said to keep away from those who belittle your ambition. I know that there
are no limits on the ambition both Sheila and Noel have for the INTO.
Having worked with both of them for many years on the Executive and in Head Office I
know they will use their considerable leadership and organizational skills for the benefit of
each and every INTO member.
You are the future. I wish you well.
So I will finish where I started by thanking you for the privilege of a lifetime, for making me
what I am.
It’s people like you who make people like me.
I am what I am because I am – I am what I am because of you.
Go raibh mile maith agaibh go leir.