Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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45. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his Action Plan for Education will address pay inequality and ensure that workers in the education system receive equal pay for equal work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1914/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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In September, I launched the first ever Action Plan for Education. It set out the overall ambition of making the Irish education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. The plan itself focuses on the period 2016-2019 and outlines over one hundred actions to be implemented across the period.

It provides the strategic framework for planning and reporting across the Department and its agencies over the next three years and timeframes for each action are included.

Equality and fairness are of course at the heart of everything this Government is trying to do, particularly in the education area where I am particularly focused on creating better opportunities for people from disadvantaged areas in our schools system and in higher education. The recent Budget contained measures to deliver on this.

The public service agreements have allowed a programme of pay restoration to start. I have used this to negotiate substantial improvements in pay for new teachers. The agreement reached with TUI and INTO will see pay rises of between 15-22% (between €4600 and €6700) for new entrant teachers. The pay increases for new teachers are now also available to ASTI members under the proposals which members will be balloting on shortly.

In education, there is a well-established increment system. Teachers are not paid equally. For example, the pay scale for teachers appointed prior to 2011 ranges from €32,009 to €60,155 depending on the date that the individual began teaching. Part of the negotiation to date has secured a convergence of the scales of recruits at different periods. Any further negotiation on new entrant pay cannot focus on just one sector. A broader assessment of pay and new entrant pay will be informed by the analysis of the Public Service Pay Commission.

In addition, the Government yesterday moved to address an anomaly issue arising in the context of the recent Labour Court Recommendations in respect of the Garda Associations through an increase in annualised salaries of €1,000 for the period 1 April 2017 to August 2017, inclusive, for public servants on annualised salaries up to €65,000 who are parties to the Lansdowne Road Agreement and who do not stand to benefit from those Labour Court Recommendations. 

However there are other types of equality that we must also bear in mind – equality between public servants in different parts of the public service, and equality between public servants and people who work elsewhere or do not work at all. It would also not be equal or fair for us to do unaffordable deals with particular groups of public servants that mean that we do not have the money left in the public purse to provide increases in social welfare payments for vulnerable groups, tax reductions for people at work, or investments in improvements in public services that people rely on.

Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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46. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the details of the plan that has been put in place to develop resilience and emotional coping skills at an early age; the way in which this is being rolled out in primary schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39935/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department's Action Plan for Education 2016-19 underlines the important function served by the education system in promoting wellbeing in our schools. At an overarching level it commits to supporting schools in the implementation of Wellbeing Guidelines for Primary and Post-Primary schools and providing a framework for a whole-school approach to mental health and wellbeing.

There are a wide number of dimensions to my Department's work in this area and I have recently conducted an audit of our work to ensure that our efforts are integrated and effective.

We plan to step up our engagement in this field in a number of different ways. These include, for example:

- Restoring ex quota guidance provision in post-primary schools;

- Rolling out the 'Friends' and 'Incredible Years' programmes in DEIS schools;

- Implementing a new Wellbeing area of learning at Junior Cycle from September 2017;

- Increasing the resources of the National Educational Psychological Service.

I intend as part of the 2017 Action Plan to develop detailed actions to intensify our work in this area.