Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is the intention and it is the policy of the Department to be able to provide teachers who are comfortable teaching through the medium of Irish, even at a Gaeltacht school with native Irish speakers. The issue arises with regard to cost constraints imposed on us and the employment control framework. If a school loses a teacher because enrolment numbers drop, the teacher would go to a redeployment panel while the salary is guaranteed. The teacher must be redeployed into the classroom to ensure we get value for money and the contract is maintained.

The new process is happening this year for the first time and I suspect last year's experience may have informed this approach. It has been suggested that the process would be reviewed in due course. Rather than having teachers such as those described in the Deputy's opening remarks, who indicate privately to a school principal that although they are on a redeployment panel they would not be up to teaching suitably as Ghaeilge in a Gaeltacht school, we should try to avoid such occurrences by having a box to tick which indicates that a teacher would be comfortable teaching through the medium of Irish.

In theory the requirement is that applicants for initial teacher education must have done honours Irish in the leaving certificate but there are emerging difficulties in that regard. I will listen to people from An Foras Pátrúnachta and others in seeking to address this problem.

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