Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

It might be useful to take members through some of the changes we have been obliged to put in place with the economic downturn over the past five years. We have been obliged to deal with the universal social charge and the pensions related deduction. While we have been able to deal with these successfully, they have added to the burden regarding payroll. A lot of external elements, if one likes, are being imposed on us - I do not mean this in an awkward sense - which we are required to implement arising from central changes. We are working through a number of other changes at present such as the Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Act 2012 and the enactment of section 30 in respect of the need for teachers to be registered. We also are working through the taxation of illness benefits and a number of other areas. We also were able to deal with the changes from February 2012 with an easier change to the system because of the nature of the payment. The major difficulty in 2011 had been that we were obliged to recategorise staff with new entrants and so on. That really was the biggest difficulty, which we had not faced previously.

Obviously, like the committee members themselves, we are learning of the outcome in payroll terms. Although the Department obviously has had an input in policy terms to the discussions, in payroll terms we will consult the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to ascertain what will be the overall approach. While there will be challenges, elements of it also will be made more simple, for example, with regard to supervision and substitution. If the arrangements regarding supervision and substitution come through as contained in the LRC proposal, some elements of complexity in our payroll system will decrease. Furthermore, if the elements in the agreement on substitution in schools come through, there will be a reduced number of claims for external substitution. While there will be elements we will be able to address, I would not wish to underestimate the complexities regarding, for example, the various calculations that must be made and we will have to work to put in place systems. The putative starting date obviously is 1 July and we are looking at that now.