Results 31,361-31,380 of 33,049 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: If they went on to the salary scale for professor, would the Department be precluded from doing that?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The Department could not put somebody on a salary scale when he or she was a professor and take him or her off when he or she stopped being one? I want to tease this out.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I was going to ask that question. Before I do, let us look at row 65 of that document where we have the kango money allowance. This goes to the heart of the difficulty we face, which is that one has an approach that covers a head of department allowance and then under the same "allowance" heading, one finds the kango money allowance. Three people within the education sector are in receipt...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: If we were to draw a curve of the number of people in receipt of an allowance and the cash value of the allowance - perhaps we should do this as part of our report - we would find the high value allowances which lots of people are drawing and then it would tail off and leave a very long tail of lots of allowances that only a few people claim, like many of those here. That long tail is where...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: That is why I spent the majority of my time trying to tease out matters. If we were to assume that a principal's allowance is not really an allowance, which is the point made by Mr. Burke and which I accept, and we stripped that out from our analysis, we would see a situation where the vast majority of the allowances, given that the degree allowance will change, will be received by people...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I make the assumption that a principal's allowance is not an allowance, but a payment for doing a bigger job. We then end up with something that is consistent with what we saw in the Defence Forces. Am I right in saying that once the principal's allowance is stripped out, as one goes up the income scale the percentage of one's total income that consists of allowances decreases?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I am stripping that out.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I am stripping that out and putting the view on it that it is not an allowance. I believe it is a payment for doing a bigger job.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I am conscious that much work was done in preparation for the meeting. I will ask for two small pieces of additional work that the witnesses might share with us. I ask them to produce a table similar to appendix A showing how things might look in five years when more of our new teachers are within the system. I also ask them to produce this sheet and break out the principal's allowance and...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I want to bring that to a conclusion. I say we should take that piece out in order to understand the situation now and for the future. A conclusion that could come out of our work is greater clarity on where exactly the allowances go. I would be grateful if the witnesses could share that with us. Having clarified that, I wish to return to a point Mr. Burke made earlier in the session....

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Choices such as this have been made in the past to avoid increases across entire worker groups, which of course would be difficult to justify.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I wanted to tease that out because it goes to the heart of much of the discussion we are having.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Okay. I wish to discuss appendix C. Appendix A gives real-life examples and provides a micro-view of where the allowances go, while appendix C gives the macro-view. I want to ensure I understand this table. The principal row indicates that on average 23.4% of a principal's total salary consists of an allowance. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: For a principal.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Does that include his or her allowance for being a principal?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Can I ask Mr. Ó Foghlú to give us this table again-----

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, that is fine. Can I ask the Department to produce the table for us again with that allowance omitted? It would allow us to ascertain on average how much of a principal's salary consists of other allowances that are not related to the additional work involved in being a principal. With regard to the 3.9% figure for supervision and substitution allowance, does that mean that for the...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I want to make sure I have that clarification. For a teacher who is doing that work, the allowance makes up 4% of his or her annual salary?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: That strips out the teachers who are not doing it.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I understand. On the second page, I assume the principle is the same - although that is the wrong phrase to use.