New teachers angry at Quinn wages ‘insult’

New teachers are infuriated that Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has ordered a clampdown on employment rights on school building sites while some of them are owed thousands of euro in back pay by his department.

Problems with the Department of Education payroll system mean teachers who qualified last year have been on incorrect rates since September. They are already subject to salaries and substitution rates lower than those who started in previous years, but are angry they are not even being paid those rates.

Teachers working casual hours or as substitutes are being paid a rate given to unqualified people, meaning they get €115 instead of €159 a day, and others are being paid the lowest point of the old salary scale instead of a revised scale approved in the autumn that took account of new teachers no longer being paid qualifications allowances like their longer-serving counterparts.