Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At a broader level, there are no unnecessary delays for the payment of teachers on payrolls operated by my Department.

Some 120,000 payees are paid fortnightly. The process for the payment of an individual teacher is that the managerial authority of a school submits the application form to my Department to enable payment to be set up. The application form must confirm that a teacher is qualified for the appropriate sector and confirm his or her registration details with the Teaching Council. Once a completed application form has been received, the payment is processed as soon as possible. Normally, payroll closing dates are ten days before the payment date.

Where an application form is not complete or where there are queries about 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's registration is not active with the Teaching Council, payment cannot be made for the period he or she is unregistered. Where a teacher works on a casual or non-casual basis, school authorities enter details of the employee and the claim for payment into the online claims system, which will transfer to the Department’s payroll, and the employee will be paid according to the payroll schedules.

Schools authorities have details of payroll closing dates. Payments cannot be processed until they are signed off by the school authorities. If the deadline for payrolls is missed, payments will not be made until the following payroll date. If the Deputy conveys to me individual examples of problems in the system, I will be happy to follow up on them.

See this speech in context