At least 25 primary and secondary school teachers received retirement lump sums of over €150,000 in 2020

Wednesday, 7 April 2021 06:41

According to Freedom of Information documents, three got over 170,000 euro from the Department of Education.

707 primary school teachers received retirement lump sums last year, coming to a total of nearly €68 million.

The average payment was almost €96,000, while 414 got over 100,000, and five got over 150,000.

432 secondary school teachers got a total of €40.7 million in lump sums in 2020.

The average was over €94,000, while 211 got over 100,000, and the highest was almost €184,000.

Labour's education spokesman, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, is defending the payments.

"It's part of a public sector pay deal, it's part of the contract that the teachers will have entered into. This is obviously as a result of long service and in certain circumstances, depending on the size of the school, if they're in the management role or a principal role. This is part of the agreement, so it's upholding a public service agreements, I think that highly trained, public servants should be well paid, and I think they deserve to be rewarded at the end of their careers."

€930 million in pension payments was also paid to retired primary and secondary teachers and their spouses and children last year.

This relates to almost 32,000 people.