Mr. Pat Burke:

From recollection, schools are exhorted to have put together a list of people who are qualified and available. That does not include retired people. The schools are asked to draw from this list in the first instance. It is only in circumstances where this is absolutely impossible that a retired person can be called in. This is preferable to calling an unqualified person and the approach is reasonable. The unqualified person would be last to be called. There is no doubt that this position has been espoused strongly because issues arise as to the capacity to legislate in this area. It would be legally tricky. I would not underestimate the impact of retired staff being classified as new entrants. Effectively, in financial terms, the incentive for people who are retired to return to school to do supervisory work has been diminished considerably. The main measure is probably the very strong exhortation of schools in this regard. One should not underestimate the peer-pressure dimension. Given that so many young teachers are looking for jobs, schools would be quite brave to bring back retired staff if there were a number of young teachers available locally and perhaps known to the principals.