I am too generous with time, but it is important. I call Deputy Bríd Smith.

I hope you will be as generous with me, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. There is a huge irony which I hope is not lost on the Members of the House. It certainly is not lost on teachers. Members of the AGSI and the GRA are the same people who will be vetting parents and others to do the work of teachers from Monday, when teachers will refuse to do work for which they are not paid. To correct some of what other Deputies have said, there is no action or strike planned by teachers on Monday. What is happening on Monday is that the Minister is refusing to pay members of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland, ASTI, for supervisory duties. If the schools close in that scenario, the Taoiseach, Government and the Minister are responsible for that closure, not the members of the ASTI. That must be made clear.

This is a sideshow. The members of the ASTI took a day's action just over a week ago for pay equality. It has been extraordinary to listen to the depths that journalists and others have gone to in an effort to get the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, to state that he believes in equality. "Equality" is a simple, popular, profound word in human society, but the Minister will not say it. He will not acknowledge that he supports pay equality. It appears that, should the Labour Court bring forward a recommendation that satisfies the gardaí and they do not go on strike, there is a deliberate attempt by the Government to isolate members of the ASTI and to paint the ASTI as a dodgy organisation. In fact, it is extremely democratic. There are 180 elected members on its executive, its president is a lay teacher rather than a trade union official and the union consults constantly with its members. Its sin, however, is that it did not vote to stay in the Lansdowne Road pay agreement. On Monday, the terms the members of the ASTI adhered to under the Croke Park agreement will no longer be adhered to because the members are outside the Lansdowne Road agreement. Is it not more irony that the State is willing to pay parents and others €36 per week, as opposed to €15 per week, to carry out the supervisory duty? The Irish Examiner reports this morning that it would cost €70 million in total, less than 1% of the education budget, to restore full pay parity for all teachers.

Does the Taoiseach support equality in pay? Is he for the restoration of full pay equality to all teachers, regardless of their trade union membership, and to nurses and gardaí? Does he believe in equality and does he wish to see it restored? If so, is there any way he can extract from the Minister's mouth that he, too, believes in it? If not, perhaps before the Taoiseach leaves office, and I see he is being celebrated on RTE, he might make the statement: "I believe in equality". Otherwise, it is the equivalent of saying to Rosa Parks, when she got on a bus all those years ago to demand equality in public transport, that she is entitled to one fifth of a seat, not the full seat.

Equality is at the very centre of the work the Government tries to do across a range of spheres. I am disappointed that the ASTI has taken a day's action-----

It has not taken a day's action.

-----and that others will follow. It is important to note that there are two disputes causing industrial action on the part of the ASTI at present. The first relates to the withdrawal from supervision and substitution, which is likely to cause indefinite closures from 7 November on, affecting over 250,000 students and parents. That is the result of the ASTI's withdrawal from carrying out the 33 hours per year under the Croke Park agreement. There is a deal on the table which will see payments for supervision and substitution restored, as well as a number of other benefits to ASTI members, if they agree to carry out the 33 hours under the Croke Park agreement and suspend their industrial action. At the heart of that dispute is less than an hour per week, agreed in previous public pay deals, to allow schools to host planning meetings and parent-teacher meetings outside school hours.

I am sure the Deputy would agree with it. Similar hours are worked across the public service. Most public servants agreed to work 100 extra hours per year, as against 33 in the education sector. The Deputy is aware that the TUI and INTO have already negotiated an agreement and are benefitting from the Landsdowne Road agreement.

The dispute which caused the one-day stoppage last week was about new-entrant teachers. There is a deal on offer to the ASTI which would see increases of 15% and 22% for new entrant teachers with further benefits in working conditions and a route to a further possible improvement through the public pay commission, which is entitled to do a specific analysis of teacher pay and conditions. The deals being paid to the TUI and INTO are available to ASTI. The starting figures will increase by 15% between August of this year and 1 January 2018, from €31,000 to €35,600. An individual member recruited since 1 September 2015 will see a 22% increase in pay from 31 August this year to 1 January 2018, from €31,000 to €37,700. The ASTI's decision to withdraw from supervision and substitution was a unilateral decision which deprived its members of benefits. If it reversed the ban, the benefits would be available to them forthwith. The agreements reached with the TUI and INTO speak for themselves.

For the benefit of everybody who needs to understand, I repeat, should the schools close on Monday indefinitely, it will be due not to the action of the teachers but of the Government. The ASTI is not planning action. Its members are just not working for something for which they are not getting paid. None of us here is working for something for which he or she is not getting paid. Very few people do. We are witnessing major anger at the slow unwinding of the FEMPI legislation. Nurses have to work an extra shift every six weeks under appallingly stressful conditions in a creaking health service that does not even allow nurses to work at an even pace when they are working for pay. This will spread across the public sector. It will not stay confined to teachers. There is a high level of disgruntlement and it boils down to equality. Teachers are working alongside people who are doing the same job on a completely different pay scale.

Equality must be restored not gradually but fully. You do not give Rosa Parks one fifth of a seat on the bus; you give her a whole seat, if you believe she should be treated equally. When women were fighting for equal pay, the Government would never have suggested giving them a portion of the pay they were entitled to. The Government should make a commitment to give full equal pay and set a date when it will be implemented. The dispute on Monday is not about teachers withdrawing. They are just refusing to work for nothing. The Government is closing the schools, and it must acknowledge this.

Again, the Deputy has deliberately missed the point. The ASTI's decision to withdraw from supervision and substitution is the cause of a situation in which boards of management are unable to keep schools open due to health and safety reasons.

The Government should pay them for doing the work.

Due to this decision, more than 250,000 pupils and their parents could be inconvenienced on an ongoing basis. Although supervision and substitution were part of the agreement heretofore, the ASTI, for its own reasons, decided to withdraw from it. The agreement was to work 33 hours extra per year, or one hour per week. Most other public servants agreed to work 100 extra hours per year. If the ASTI wants to have the substitution and supervision money paid to its members, all it has to do is reverse the ban, which it decided on. The closure of the schools was not directed or caused by the Minister for Education and Skills. The boards of management are responsible for opening schools, and they cannot open them if there is not proper supervision for the children who attend. The ASTI could deal with the issue today. The question of the pay for new entrants has already been outlined.

I hope we can again have a situation where the ASTI would reflect on what the Teachers Union of Ireland and Irish National Teachers Organisation have done in sitting down, balloting their members and agreeing to receive the benefits they are now receiving. Those benefits are available to the ASTI in the same way. This is about the country moving forward as a country and not for any individual sectoral gain. Again, we cannot step outside the Lansdowne Road agreement.

The Taoiseach is sounding like William Martin Murphy. He is going to lock out the teachers next Monday.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has no leeway left.

He will lock out the teachers on Monday.

The benefits here are available to the ASTI and I hope the discussions now taking place will bring them about.