INTO news
John Boyle
John pictured with his colleagues at St Colmcille’s JNS, Knocklyon with South County Dublin branch. I attended Annual Congress every year and later became branch and district chairperson.” In his mid-thirties, John decided he would like to become a principal teacher. He applied for a few positions and was appointed principal of St Colmcille’s JNS, Knocklyon, in September 2000. “We have a brilliant staff and a wonderful school community,” says John of St Colmcille’s. “They have strongly supported my INTO involvement.” The school has a new building since 2014 and has now grown to become one of the largest primary schools in the country. John spent 13 years on the INTO’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) and put in much hard work before his year as president even started. He visited branches all around the country to gain support and was very appreciative when he got the votes of nearly 12,500 members in the presidential election. He is very proud of the progress made by the INTO since last Easter. 1 January 2018 is a date that John was focussed on for more than six months. “Our members have benefitted from the first percentage salary restoration in nearly a decade, our senior teachers who took a third pay cut in 2013 have finally seen the ‘minuses’ removed from their payslips and, crucially, our post-2011 entrants have got the equivalent of the Honours Degree allowance embedded into their salaries. The first tranche of posts of responsibility since the moratorium began has been restored and class sizes will be reduced to the lowest they have been since the foundation of the state.” “There is still work to be done in the south and it all revolves around equality.
The process intended to address new entrant salary scales must end the plague of pay inequality in the coming months. Likewise school leaders must receive their long overdue ‘equality’ award after next September’s review. We have been progressing equality issues since our foundation in 1868, so I’m confident that the INTO will prevail in our battles for our newer entrants and our school leaders.” “I’d also like to see primary education resourced to the same level as secondary education with all of our promotional posts restored and class sizes brought down to the EU average,” says John. “In Northern Ireland the cycle of austerity cuts must end this year. A new beginning there must properly value workers and recognise that future generations deserve an appropriately resourced education system.” Some of the proudest moments of his presidency were presenting Prof John Coolahan with the INTO Presidential medal for his service to Irish education, being present at the Workplace Relations
Commission when INTO members Tomás Horgan and Claire Keegan presented their case for equal pay and visits to Leinster House with fellow presidents of ASTI and TUI, demanding pay equality. This has been a year tinged with sadness for John too. His beloved mother passed away in August and he has attended the funerals of many teaching friends and INTO members throughout the year. He is grateful to Head Office and Northern Office officials, to fellow members of the CEC, Northern Committee and our national committees, to local officers and staff reps for their work throughout the year. He gives special mention to his “very supportive wife, Carmel”. “I’m really looking forward to chairing what promised to be a very memorable Congress,” says John. “I’m only 53, so I expect to stay actively involved with the union for a good while more, but it will be hard to surpass the exhilaration and pride I’ve felt while being president in the INTO’s 150th year.”
John recently paid a visit to Scoil Naomh Dúigh, Annagaire – the primary school he attended as a child INTOUCH
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MARCH 2018