Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Tá sé seo i bhfad níos measa ná a cheapamar. Tá daoine ag dul gan pá mar tá an iomarca imithe ar cháin, toisc go raibh fadhb ag an Roinn, agus níl aon fhreagra ag an Aire anseo sa Dáil maidir le cathain a gheobhaidh siad an pá sin.

This is far worse than has been reported publicly. This is an absolutely incredibly blunder by the Department. It is not one blunder but at least two. First, information was inadvertently included to the effect that substitute staff, casual and non-casual staff had an end date. Second, a software fix was applied that did not fix the problem. That is two blunders. I will gladly volunteer to go into the Minister's Department and help write the cheques to the teachers affected. That is the only solution to this problem. It is not good enough for the Minister to come into the Dáil and say he is using all his efforts to find a solution. The Minister is the employer: he is required by law to pay the wages of his staff. I strongly suggest that a manual process is applied, with all hands on deck to make sure that the cheques are written. It is simply not good enough to tell teachers to wait for Revenue to refund their tax. They are PAYE staff. They are not responsible for making returns to Revenue. Not once but twice the Minister has admitted on the floor of the Dáil that this is the Department's fault and we still do not have a solution to this problem. The only news the Minister has given me tonight is that he is using all his efforts to find a solution. I suggest the solution is to write cheques from the Department and then sort it out between the Department and Revenue separately.

That is the only way this will be solved. These teachers are extremely vulnerable. They are utterly dependent on their wages for what is in many cases casual work and this would not be accepted by the Government from a private employer. There must be a total change of approach and money due to these teachers should be paid.

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