Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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172. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason for further delays to the payment of teachers in September 2019; the nature of the delays; the actions being taken to address this issue; if the problem that has occurred is the same problem that arose in January 2019; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38645/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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There are no unnecessary delays to the payment of teachers on payrolls operated by my Department this September.

There are 120,000 payees paid on a fortnightly basis. The process for the payment of an individual teacher is that where a contract is awarded by the managerial authority of a school, application forms are submitted to my Department to enable payment to be set up.

The application form must confirm that a teacher is qualified for the appropriate sector and confirm their registration details with the Teaching Council. Details of bank accounts, pension status and other requested information must also be submitted. Once a completed application form is received, the payment will be processed as soon as possible. Normally, payroll closing dates are 10 days ahead of payment date. Where an application form is not complete or where there are queries on some aspect of the application, the forms will be returned to the schools which can result in a delay to payment being set up for a teacher. Where a teacher's registration is not active with the Teaching Council, payment can not be made for the period that a person is unregistered.

Where a teacher is working on a casual / non-casual basis, school authorities enter details of the employee and the claim for payment into the online claims system and these will transfer to the Department’s payroll and be paid according to the payroll schedules. Schools authorities have details of payroll closing dates. These payments cannot be processed until they are signed off by the school authorities. If the deadline for payrolls is missed, payments will not be made until the following payroll date.

During July and August, there are up to 20,000 changes to the payrolls operated by my Department. This consists of retirements, resignations, career breaks, job-sharing, new appointments, increases / decreases in teaching hours, temporary contracts, secondments, award of Contract of Indefinite Duration, re-deployments, and pension payment set ups. All appointments and changes are dealt with in chronological order. It is my Department’s policy to set up as many teachers as possible for the first payroll of the new school year but not all payments can be guaranteed as details may not be received in time to enable payment to be made or applications received may be incomplete, and may have to be returned to the managerial authority for completion.

Once a contracted teacher is set up on payroll, their payment will continue until the end of the contract. Teachers’ working on a casual / non-casual basis will be paid on the next scheduled payroll after the details have been submitted and signed off by the school.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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173. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he is satisfied that his Department and the Revenue Commissioners have resolved technical issues that led to the non-payment of teachers in January 2019; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38646/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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I wish to clarify for the Deputy that all teachers were paid in January 2019.

An issue arose at that time in relation to incorrect amounts of income tax being deducted from substitute and part- time teachers. This arose as incorrect end dates were included in payroll submissions reported to Revenue under the changes introduced by the modernization of PAYE. The inclusion of these end-dates in the Departments' submissions automatically ceased the DES employment of those concerned in Revenue records and resulted in their available tax credits being made available to other employments. When the Department next requested updated Revenue Payroll Notifications for those impacted, Revenue had already ceased the employments and transferred tax credits leaving no tax credits or cut offs available for their continuing employments by the Department

The payroll software was amended for payrolls after the 17th January 2019 to prevent an end date transferring to Revenue. This resolved the problem and refunds of tax were issued to the people involved.

Staff of my Department actively engaged with the Revenue Commissioners to address the problem at the time. They have liaised with during the year and continue to liaise with the Revenue Commissioners to ensure that no further issues will arise to prevent correct RPN details being applied.