Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will reconsider the lower rate of pay which he is enforcing on public sector workers, that is teachers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42478/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The adjustment to the pay scale for new entrant teachers along with other public service entrant grades was approved by the previous Government on 2 December 2010 and arose from the need to reduce exchequer pay costs having regard to the national financial position. The requirement to constrain such pay costs is ongoing and accordingly there are no plans to revisit this decision regarding the pay rates of public service entrant grades including teachers. Equally, it is not planned to change the position in respect of the recent Government decision to withdraw the payment of qualification allowances to new entrant teachers.

In the context of the removal of the qualifications allowances for new entrant teachers, the Government has decided that new entrant teachers who will no longer be in receipt of qualification allowances will commence on a salary of €30,702, which is equivalent to the fourth point of the existing teachers salary scale from 1 January 2011. In gross salary terms this amounts to an incremental salary gain of €2,888 on the base incremental point of the scale for new entrant teachers. New entrant teachers will also have the option of being paid a pensionable allowance of €1,592 for supervision and substitution, thereby bringing their starting salary to €32,294.