Marie Sherlock
Question:506. Deputy Marie Sherlock asked the Minister for Education and Youth the reason the phoneline dealing with teachers’ pay inquiries is only available on two days every fortnight. [28339/26]
View answerTuesday, 21 April 2026
Questions (506)
Written answers
The Payroll Division of my Department provides a wide range of services to school staff. School staff can contact a few areas within the payroll sections daily.
The Payroll OLCS team operates a phone service daily from 9:00am to 5:00pm dealing with queries from schools in relation to the operation of the Online Claims System. This team deals with the leave queries for teachers and payment for substitute/part-time claims.
Illness Benefit Unit also provides a phone service daily from 9:00am to 5:00pm dealing with illness benefit queries from teachers and non-teaching staff. In addition, the Overpayments Team are available each day to deal with queries in relation to overpayments and repayment plans from teachers and non-teaching staff.
School staff are encouraged to contact Payroll Division in relation to individual pay related queries via the Case Management System (CMS). This allows queries to be directed to the appropriate payroll staff based on query category and school roll number and can allow queries to be triaged depending on priority. For e.g a request to change a bank account is given priority over a request where a teacher wants to know what point on the salary scale are on as that information is available on their payslip. Teachers can request a call back in relation to their query and this is facilitated.
In 2025 approx. 110,000 payroll queries were submitted and resolved through the CMS channel. The CMS system is central to managing the high volume of queries from almost 170,000 payees across four different payrolls. The CMS also allows the automation of high-volume requests such as the issue of salary certificates and statements of earnings and provides analytics which are used to further improve services
The operation of the payroll is a fortnightly process and involves a set schedule of tasks that must be completed in a strict sequence for each pay run. Operational payroll staff are not available to answer individual telephone queries while these tasks are being worked on and completed. The accurate and timely completion of the payroll schedule is a priority. Once the pay schedule tasks are completed and the payroll is ready to issue, payroll staff are available to answer individual salary related queries. The highest level of payroll queries tend to follow once salary is issued and payroll staff provide a telephone service on the Thursdays and Fridays of pay week to meet that demand
Payroll Division is actively involved in customer service improvement measures taking place in the Department. This includes work in relation to improving how the Department uses technology and responds to voice communications from the public.