Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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825. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide a definitive date by which payroll difficulties will be resolved satisfactorily. [1531/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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826. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps being taken by her Department to ensure that difficulties with her Department’s payroll will be resolved satisfactorily. [1532/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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838. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason an apology for the delay in paying increments deferred under the Haddington Road agreement was not posted on her Department’s website. [1544/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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839. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of persons on her Department’s payroll affected by the delay in paying increments deferred under the Haddington Road agreement. [1545/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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840. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of primary teachers who began teaching this academic year and who remain to be placed on the correct payscale. [1546/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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841. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures taken by her Department’s payroll section to automate the application of other consequential Haddington Road agreement measures. [1547/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 825, 826 and 838 to 841, inclusive, together.

The details of the Haddington Road Agreement for teachers are extremely complex and are outlined in my Department Circulars 5/2014 for post primary teachers and 32/2013 for primary teachers. My Department operates the largest payroll in the State, with approximately 98,000 school employees and pensioners paid every fortnight. These payrolls have become increasingly complex over the past five years, due to the following:

- Introduction of three salary scales and two sets of allowances, by comparison to a single salary scale and set of allowances for all teachers, prior to 2010.

- Introduction of the Universal Social Charge (USC), Pension related Deduction (PRD) and the single pension scheme.

- Implementation of Section 30 of the Teaching Council Act 2001 and new sick leave regulations for schools employees etc.In addition, the school employee payrolls have a high volume of substitute and casual appointments for payment, which is not a feature of other comparable payrolls for Civil Servants, Army, Garda Síochána etc. Work is ongoing at present to incorporate payments to home tutors through the payroll, which will broaden the range of payees coming within the remit of the school employee payrolls.

Accordingly, the development of the software to implement the Haddington Road Agreement (HRA) in the context of the overall numbers being paid on the payroll (including substitute and casual appointees), the payroll complexities referenced above and the complexity of the agreement itself has been a very difficult and complex task. A further complication is the fact that the software programme in addition to dealing with the deferred increments has to calculate/re calculate the salary reduction provisions of the HRA for those reaching €65,000 taking account of the impact of increments and allowances.

The development of the programmes together with the comprehensive testing necessary to ensure the correct application of the terms of the agreement has taken longer than projected to implement. The majority of increments for teachers earning less than €65,000 including allowances became payable from the 1st December as teachers are generally appointed from 1 September. For the majority of those earning in excess of €65,000 increments will become payable from the 1st March. The target dates for the payment of the deferred increments and arrears to primary teachers and special need assistants is the 12th February and to post primary teachers on 19 February. It will only be possible to provide data in relation to the numbers impacted by the deferral of increments at the beginning of February. Arrangements will be made to have the new scales implemented for the 2011 appointees as soon as possible after the work in relation to the deferral of increments is completed.

I understand that teachers who commenced teaching in the current academic school year are being paid on the correct incremental scale.