Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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182. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures she will implement to increase the retention of qualified teachers; if she will revisit the changes to pay, terms and conditions for newly qualified teachers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39930/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Since the beginning of the financial crisis, there has been a need to enact a number of measures to reduce public expenditure. The previous Government reduced the salaries and allowances payable of all new entrants to public service recruitment grades (including teachers) by 10% with effect from 1 January 2011 and required that such new entrants would start on the first point of the applicable salary scale.

Subsequently, following the public service-wide review of allowances and premium payments, the Government decided to withdraw or modify allowances for new beneficiary public servants with effect from 1 February 2012. Under this decision, certain allowances were withdrawn for new beneficiary teachers, including qualification allowances. However, the Government partially compensated for this by deciding that new entrant teachers would henceforth commence on a new salary scale which had a starting point higher than the starting point of the old scale.

These measures were implemented at a time of very difficult financial and budgetary circumstances for the State.

Alleviation of the salary imbalance between those who entered the public service since 2011 and those who entered before that date began under the Haddington Road Agreement. Improved pay scales for post-1 January 2011 and post-1 February 2012 entrants to teaching were agreed and implemented under the terms of that Agreement. In addition, allowances payable to post-1 January 2011 entrants and such allowances as remain payable to post-1 February 2012 entrants were restored to pre-2011 levels.

The Lansdowne Road Agreement will, through salary increases and a reduction in the Pension-Related Deduction, begin the process of restoring the reductions to public service pay which were implemented over recent years. The issue of equalised pay scales was not one which could be resolved in the discussions which lead to the Agreement. However, the flat-rate increases contained in the Agreement will be proportionately more favourable to new entrants to teaching (who are lower on the pay scale) than to longer serving teachers.

In addition, in order to address concerns about the casualisation of employment in the teaching profession, my Department implemented at the commencement of the 2015/16 school year the seven key recommendations of the Expert Group on Fixed-term and Part-time Employment in Teaching, which was established under the Haddington Road Agreement. Circulars 23/2015 and 24/2015 detailing the arrangements and procedures for the implementation of the recommendations of the report were published on March 27th 2015. One of the key features of the new procedures is that the qualification period for the granting of an initial Contract of Indefinite Duration (CID) is reduced from a period of continuous employment in excess of three years with the same employer to a period of continuous employment in excess of two years.