In this lesson you will read a sample Irish payslip the way a first job actually hands it to you. Most people glance at the net figure and ignore the rest. Today you will open every line, move the gross pay, and see what each deduction is for, including how tax funds public services and how PRSI buys entitlements you may need later.

These four terms sit on almost every Irish payslip. You will need them for the explorer and for your annotation.

Gross pay is what you earn before deductions. Net pay is what lands in your account after them. Tax and USC help fund public services such as healthcare, education, infrastructure and social welfare. PRSI is different: it builds a contribution record for personal entitlements. Citizens Information is a clear public guide if you want to read more later in your own time.

You are going to work a live Irish-style payslip, then write it up in your Digital Portfolio. This is Strand 1.2 portfolio evidence you can draw on later for Portfolio in Action AAC preparation; it is not tied to a single Applied Learning Task on its own.

Part 1 — explore (about 15 minutes). Open the payslip explorer. This is a fictional sample employer for class: figures show how deductions behave, not this year's live rates. Slide gross pay up and down. Watch PAYE, USC, PRSI and pension move. Expand each deduction and read where the money goes. Switch to the self-employed view and notice who must handle the work your employer does for you when you are on a payroll.

How employment registration works (high level). Before you annotate, fix these four beats in your head:

1. Your employer registers the employment with Revenue.
2. Revenue issues a Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) with your tax credits and rates.
3. Payroll uses that RPN to calculate PAYE, USC and PRSI on each payslip.
4. You can check or update your details in myAccount on revenue.ie.

Part 2 — annotate (about 20 minutes). Open or create your Payslip Annotation document in your Strand 1.2 folder. Using the payslip on screen as your sample, write one clear full sentence for each required point below (a stranger should be able to follow it). Save a finished document before you leave; finishing the artefact is the goal of this block.

Required:

• gross pay
• PAYE (income tax) and what it funds at a high level
• USC and when it may be low or zero
• PRSI and the entitlements idea (not general spending): one short paragraph is fine here
• net pay
• one short paragraph, in your own words from the four beats above: how employment registration with Revenue works at a high level (employer registers → RPN → payroll deductions → you check myAccount)

Stretch (if you finish early):

• employer, employee, pay period and contract type as shown
• any pension line, and whether that money is still yours
• one comparison sentence on employed versus self-employed responsibility after trying both explorer tabs

This document is your evidence that you can read Irish pay, not only quote labels.

Talk these through with the person beside you, or sit with them quietly on your own. This step is talk only; any employed-versus-self-employed sentence belongs as an optional stretch line on your Payslip Annotation during the write-up block, not as after-class homework.

• Which deduction on today's payslip buys entitlements for you later, rather than funding general public spending? How would you explain that difference to someone starting their first job this summer?
• If your first job was self-employed freelance work instead of a payroll job, what would change about who calculates and pays PAYE, USC and PRSI?

Today you read Irish pay properly, not only the net figure.

• Why tax and related charges help fund public services such as healthcare, education, infrastructure and social welfare
• How to identify gross pay, PAYE, USC, PRSI, pension and net pay on a sample Irish payslip
• That PRSI builds a contribution record for entitlements, rather than acting as general spending tax
• How employment registration with Revenue works at a high level: employer registers, Revenue issues an RPN, payroll applies credits and deductions, and you can check details through myAccount
• Your Digital Portfolio build: Payslip Annotation in Strand 1.2, with each required component identified in your own words (Strand 1 portfolio evidence for later Portfolio in Action AAC preparation)