Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As Chairman of the committee, I completely endorse the points made by Deputies Byrne and Martin about equality of pay for our new entrants into the system. I have visited a number of schools, as I know many of us have, particularly over the past year, and have been incredibly impressed by the commitment, dedication and enthusiasm of the new teachers whom we are very lucky to have in the system. They are being treated very poorly in respect of their pay and conditions. I also ask that the Minister and his Department commit absolutely to restore pay equity to them. Regarding primary teachers' salaries, and considering the metrics, I also make the point that sometimes we can consider purely the instruction time within a classroom from the teacher's perspective but not really consider the teacher's working day. The teacher's working day can very often be much longer than the actual instruction time a teacher gives to his or her pupils. I now return to the Minister for his comments regarding this subhead.