Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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135. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount saved by having a lower level of pay for new recruits to the public service in his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13012/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As a consequence of the financial crisis, there was a need to enact a number of measures to reduce public expenditure so as to stabilise the country's public finances. A previous Government reduced the salaries and allowances payable to all new entrants to public service recruitment grades by 10% with effect from 1 January 2011. This decision also required that such new entrants would start on the first point of the applicable salary scale, which in the case of teachers had the effect of reducing their starting pay by a further 4-5%. Later in 2011, the Government placed a cap on the overall level of qualification allowances that could be earned by teachers.

Subsequently in 2012, following the public service-wide review of allowances, the Government withdrew qualification allowances for new teachers altogether. 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.

In respect of teachers, the estimated cost of reversing the decision to withdraw qualification allowances from post-1 February 2012 entrant teachers is approximately €16 million per annum. In addition, the estimated cost of restoring all post-1 January 2011 entrant teachers (who have been recruited up to June 2016) to the pre-2011 pay scale arrangements is approximately €44 million per annum.

In respect of SNAs, the estimated cost of restoring all post-1 January 2011 entrant SNAs to the pre-2011 pay scale arrangements is approximately €5 million per annum.

The cost figures set out are inclusive of teachers and SNAs on my Department's main payroll, substitute teachers and SNAs, Employers' PRSI and include an estimated cost in respect of teachers and SNAs in Education and Training Board schools. They do not include the cost of removing the cap on qualification allowances because a precise calculation of this would depend on the qualifications held by those individual teachers.

The other main area where post-1 January 2011 entrants have been recruited is in third-level lecturing. The estimated cost of restoring post-1 January 2011 entrant lecturers to the pre-2011 pay scale arrangements is not available at this time but will be forwarded to the Deputy.

Information on the numbers of post-1 January 2011 entrants to other recruitment grades in the sector is not held by my Department. However, given the low level of recruitment to such posts in recent years due to the moratorium, the cost of restoring such staff to the pre-2011 pay scale arrangements is not likely to be significant.