Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 6 September 2019
382. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills the date, number of teachers impacted and value of payment due not issued for each event in which 30 or more teachers were not paid on an agreed date from January 2019 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35726/19]
View answerTeachers are paid fortnightly by my Department. The process for payment is that where a contract is being awarded by a school to a teacher, application forms are submitted to my Department to enable payment to be set up. Application forms must confirm that a teacher is qualified for the appropriate sector and confirm their registration details with the Teaching Council. Details of bank accounts and other requested information must also be submitted. Once a completed application form is received, the payment will be processed as soon as possible. Normally, payroll closing dates are 10 days ahead of payment date. Where an application form is not complete or where there are queries on some aspect of the application, the forms will be returned to the schools which can result in a delay to payment being set up for a teacher.
Where a teacher is working on a casual/non-casual basis, schools enter details of the employee and the claim for payment into the online claims system and this will transfer to the Department’s payroll and be paid according to the payroll schedules. Schools have details of payroll closing dates. These payments cannot be processed until they are signed off by the school authorities.
During July and August, there are usually up to 20,000 changes to the payrolls operated by my Department. This consists of retirements, resignations, career breaks, job-sharing, new appointments, increases/decreases in teaching hours, temporary contracts, secondments, award of CID contracts, re-deployments, new schools and school closures. All appointments and changes are dealt with in chronological order. It is my Department’s policy to set up as many teachers as possible for the first payroll of the new school year but not all payments can be guaranteed as details may not be received in time to enable payment to be made or applications received may be incomplete, and may have to be returned to the managerial authority for completion.
Once a contracted teachers is set up on payroll, their payment will continue until the end of the contract. Teachers’ working on a casual/non-casual basis will be paid on the next scheduled payroll after the details have been submitted by the school.
