Teachers’ pay and pensions cost €45m more than expected [IrishExaminer]
- Published: 19 January 2011
TEACHERS’ pay and pensions cost €45 million more than expected last year despite Government efforts to cut costs in the public service.
The €1 billion pension bill for retired teachers and staff of Vocational Education Committees (VECs) and institutes of technology was €30m more than the Department of Education had allowed for in its 2010 budget."Due to the current economic climate, a higher number than anticipated retired in 2010," a department summary of its provisional 2010 spending says.
The report also points to a €15m overspend on the salaries of teachers and special needs assistants at the country’s 4,000 primary and second-level schools. While only 0.4% over the budget allocated of more than €3.5bn, officials attribute a significant amount of the excess to additional substitution costs arising from the use of more qualified teachers in cases where schools previously employed unqualified people as substitutes at lower rates of pay.
Another factor was a rise in the number of maternity leave applications, which would have further increased costs of substitutes and teachers employed on fixed-term contracts.
Despite political concerns last year that a large proportion of her capital budget would go unspent, Education Minister Mary Coughlan’s officials paid out almost €2m more than the €781.9m allocation. However, €62m of her capital budget for primary schools had to be moved to the third level sector in the final weeks of 2010 rather than be taken back by the Department of Finance.
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