Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 592: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of teachers entitled to salary arrears from his Department under the Protection of Employees Part-time Work Act 2001; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4328/09]

Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 593: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the amount paid out by his Department to date in salary arrears under the Protection of Employees Part-time Work Act 2001; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4329/09]

Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 594: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the estimated financial liability to his Department in the payment of arrears under the Protection of Employees Part-time Work Act 2001; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4330/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 592 to 594, inclusive, together.

I would like to assure the Deputy that my Department has been very aware of the issues raised in relation to the adjustments to pay due to certain part-time teachers under the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act, 2001 and has worked closely with the school management bodies and teacher unions to ensure that the legislation is implemented and applied to teachers in a fair and consistent manner. My Department has already made the pay adjustments and paid arrears for the majority of part-time teachers, including substitute teachers and part-time teachers in secondary and Community/Comprehensive schools and substitute teachers in primary schools, that are on the payrolls it directly administers.

The group of part-time teachers that have still to receive adjusted pay and arrears are those employed on a part-time basis by individual Boards of Management of primary schools. Currently a grant system operates, which allows the Boards to claim from my Department, the funding required to pay these teachers. The Boards of Management pay the part-time teachers directly. Under the terms of the Protection of Employees (Part-time Work) Act, 2001, qualified eligible part-time teachers are entitled to be paid salary appropriate to their qualifications and to receive incremental credit in respect of relevant teaching service.

In order to ensure that the terms of this Act could be applied to any part-time teachers paid directly by school boards, my Department took the view that the best approach was to extend the central payroll process which is in place for all other teachers in primary, secondary and community and comprehensive schools rather than persist with the practice of having boards pay them directly. This approach would ensure that the teachers concerned could get full credit for their overall service where they served part-time in more than one school. My Department collected the data necessary to place the part-time resource teachers on the centralised payroll recently.

The new payroll is being developed and will be introduced from 1 September 2009 and arrears will be paid by November 2009. It is expected that approximately one thousand additional part-time resource teachers will be paid on the new payroll when it is introduced. It is not possible to determine the exact cost of the arrears payable to this group of part-time teachers until the new payroll is introduced. Factors such as the qualifications of the individual, the level of teaching service undertaken and the incremental point of the individual on the common basic scale all affect the amount of the arrears payable.