Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 April 2022
225. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Education the engagement she has had with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform regarding the need to provide pay parity between teachers who qualified pre-2011 and post-2011; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21372/22]
View answerThe Government is committed to the delivery of quality public services, and will continue to approach public service pay in a balanced way that is reasonable and fair to both public servants and the taxpayer. This has been achieved through series of national collective agreements applying across the public sector agreed between trade unions and the Government. The process for these agreements are led by my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform my Department engages with his officials on an ongoing basis.
The value of public pay deals to the Government and the taxpayer is ensuring that pay costs are managed in a sustainable and orderly way and in a climate of industrial peace. By and large the public pay agreements have delivered on these objectives over the last 12 years. The current public service agreement, Building Momentum, is in place until the end of this year.
The matter of new entrant pay is a cross sectoral issue, not just an issue for the education sector alone. New entrant pay has been gradually restored over recent years through measures in national pay agreements and has led to significant improvements in the pay of teachers. For example, the starting salary for a new entrant teacher in 2012 was €30,702. As a result of pay agreements over recent years the starting salary of a teacher is now €37,692 and from 1 October 2022 onwards will be €38,192.
In addition, as part of the agreement there is a specific provision in relation to new entrant teacher pay which allows for the skipping of Point 12 of the pay scale. This incremental jump provides an addition €1,700 increase to new entrants. This follows on from measures introduced in the September 2018 agreement which provided for incremental jumps for new entrants at point 4 and 8. This is a further improvement in pay for new entrant teachers which means that teachers on the post-2011 pay scale will reach point 11 of the pay scale in a far shorter time than teachers on the pre-2011 pay scales. The agreement states that parties agree that these measures will be implemented to resolve in full the remaining salary scale issues pertaining to new entrant teachers.
Building Momentum also provides for a sectoral bargaining process to deal with outstanding adjudications, commitments, recommendations, awards and claims which may include allowances. The teaching unions have decided to use this fund to settle outstanding claims including some related to new entrants such as the restoration of a Professional Masters in Education allowance to new entrant teachers.
