Low-paid teachers to get €1m in backpay

Over €1m in backpay will be paid by the Department of Education to up to 2,000 teachers over the next week — almost two years after revised salaries were agreed.

The changes for those who joined the profession since 2011, and whose pay scales will remain below that of more experienced teachers, were to have come into effect from November 2013 under a concession secured by unions in the Haddington Road Agreement (HRA) six months earlier.

However, the department will only this week apply the appropriate increases to 1,000 primary teachers, and a week later to hundreds of second-level teachers.