Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The recruitment and appointment of teachers to fill teaching posts is a matter for individual school authorities, subject to procedures agreed under Section 24 of the Education Act 1998 (as amended by the Education (Amendment) Act 2012). In that regard there are more than 3,700 individual employers (boards of management of primary schools and post primary schools, as well as ETBs).

While the Department does not collect data on the recruitment by individual employers, an analysis of an extract from the Department’s Online Claims System and an extract from the Teaching Council register (September 2022) was undertaken to generate a response to this question. We can provide overall totals for the School Year 22/23.

School Year 22/23	Primary	Post Primary (excl. ETBs)
Number of Substitutes not registered on the Teaching Council Register	12873	3892

Teaching Council Register extract September 2022 (some of these substitutes may have registered with the Teaching Council after this date)

OLCS extract covers full school year 22/23

Number of substitutes is calculated by counting the number of distinct individual PPSNs who claimed payment for substitution work at least once during the school year 22/23

ETB post primary schools not included.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The recruitment and appointment of teachers to fill teaching posts is a matter for individual school authorities, subject to procedures agreed under Section 24 of the Education Act 1998 (as amended by the Education (Amendment) Act 2012). In that regard there are more than 3,700 individual employers (boards of management of primary schools and post primary schools, as well as ETBs).

While my Department does not collect data on the recruitment by individual employers, an analysis of an extract from the Department’s Online Claims System and an extract from The Teaching Council register (September 2022) was undertaken to generate a response to this question. We can provide overall totals for the School Year 22/23.

School Year 22/23 Leave Type = Maternity Leave	Primary	Post Primary (excl. ETBs)
Number of Substitutes not registered on any route of the Teaching Council Register	1669	940

Teaching Council Register extract September 2022 (some of these substitutes may have registered with the Teaching Council after this date)

OLCS extract covers full school year 22/23

Number of substitutes is calculated by counting the number of distinct individual PPSNs who claimed payment for substitution work at least once during the school year 22/23

The leave type recorded against the claim was Maternity Leave. This indicates that at least one hour of the total leave period was covered by this substitute. It does not mean the entire leave period was covered by one substitute.

Post Primary ETB schools are not included.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The recruitment and appointment of teachers to fill teaching posts is a matter for individual school authorities, subject to procedures agreed under Section 24 of the Education Act 1998 (as amended by the Education (Amendment) Act 2012). In that regard there are more than 3,700 individual employers (boards of management of primary schools and post primary schools, as well as ETBs).

While my Department does not collect data on the recruitment by individual employers, an analysis of the Department’s payroll system is being undertaken to generate statistics on the teacher workforce across the country for the 2023-2024 school year and will use this for reporting on workforce statistics going forward. This will include statistics on the Full Time Equivalents (FTE), permanent and fixed contracts, with breakdowns possible by County. This work began recently and is ongoing, the relevant data for 2023-2024 is expected to be available in the near future.

Statistical information on the headcount of teachers is already produced in a similar way, and is available on My Departments website www.gov.ie/en/publication/c97fbd-teacher-statistics/.

These statistics are extracted from the mentioned payroll databases using a single extract (30th June) each year and includes contracted and casual teachers.

Information on salary scales for teachers and substitute teachers is available on www.gov.ie/en/publication/84856-salary-scales/#teachers.