Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

It is the principal's decision to employ whom he or she wishes. We have issued circulars encouraging schools to employ teachers who are not retired. Principals are required to report to their boards of management where they have decided to employ retired teachers. We have also put in place measures to reduce the starting pay of retired teachers to that of a new teacher to discourage retired teachers in seeking to return to the workplace. We have also been monitoring long-term substitution by retired teachers. This has decreased significantly in the past four years, but we are seeking to put in place further measures, including regular monitoring in order that we can see where a school has commenced an arrangement. We will consult with the school management bodies and the teacher unions because at the moment it often happens too late, and we might identify that a retired teacher has been working somewhere for a number of months. We would like to establish a mechanism whereby we can let schools and management bodies know that we know, which will encourage them not to employ retired teachers.

In the first term of the 2009-2010 school year, retired teachers worked 15,260 days in primary schools. That has declined in the first term of this year to 2,295, which is a significant decrease. I must admit that we would have some sympathy for situations where there is not a qualified teacher close by for the first couple of days of absence but what we have less sympathy for is somebody coming back for a prolonged period, in other words, a situation where a school principal asks a retired teacher to come back to cover a prolonged absence.