Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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196. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans to follow through on the commitment given by the previous Government to resolve the pay inequality issue for teachers and other public servants in the next public sector pay agreement; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40847/20]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The reduced new entrant pay scales for civil and public servants introduced in 2011 were abolished in 2013 under the Haddington Road Agreement, where it was agreed to merge the new scales and existing scales - typically by adding the lower two points of the new scale to the existing scale. As such there are no separate reduced pay scales for civil and public servants.

Under the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA) 2018 – 2020, it was agreed to examine the remaining salary scale issues, associated with the addition of the extra points, for those recruited to entry grades after January 2011. The report, laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas in March 2018, estimates the point in time cost of advancing new entrants to the public service two points along their incremental scales. The report estimated a cost of €199.8m in respect of 60,513 new entrants, an average cost of €3,300 per FTE.

Following this report, lengthy and intensive negotiations with the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions took place over 2018 resulting in an agreement on new entrant salary scales being reached in September 2018.

The main components of the agreement are:

- where two additional scale points were applied to pay scales under the Haddington Road Agreement, it was agreed that there will be two separate interventions in the pay scales as they apply to new entrant public servants recruited since January 2011.

- the two separate interventions will take place at point 4 and point 8 of the pay scales. The practical effect of this is that for new entrants the relevant points on the scale will be bypassed, thereby reducing the time spent on the scale for progression to the maximum point.

- in situations where only one point was added to the existing pay scale under Haddington Road, then the first point (i.e Point 4) is bypassed by eligible new entrants.

- this measure was applied from 1 March 2019 and will be applied to each new entrant as they reach the relevant scale points (point 4 and point 8) on their current increment date.

This is an agreement of considerable scale and complexity, each element of which was the product of negotiation with ICTU.

New entrant teachers, recruited after January 2011, are covered by the agreement.

As the Deputy is aware my Department are now engaged in formal negotiations, under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission, on the potential of a successor agreement to the PSSA. A range of issues are being discussed as part of this and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the specifics at this time.