Mr. Diarmaid de Paor:

It would certainly help to have teachers who knew that they were committed to a particular school for a certain time. We have to be honest and say that it is not going to obviate the problem. The problem is that there might be some teachers with a commitment from a school for a certain number of hours a week who might therefore be called upon, but suddenly a chemistry teacher is required and none is available. Sometimes a teacher gets sick and a replacement is required, but at second level the teachers are specialised and one cannot imagine that a teacher could be permanently employed by the school for a number of hours on every single subject. It is very important that there is a hierarchy of what is done when a substitute is required, and that starts with a qualified teacher looking for work who is not retired. Those are the people who need the work most. If we had a situation were people were to be employed on a casual basis we can be imaginative about it. It could be for groups of schools. It need not be a case where one school is committing to employing a French teacher whether it was needed or not. If there were a group of schools in an area that a teacher could get a commitment from and was going to be paid for a minimum number of hours, and if they worked more they would get paid more, that might work. Schools in a particular radius could have a French or chemistry or English teacher. Obviously there will be times when the French teacher is working in one school and somebody falls ill in another school so one of the schools would still need somebody else, but the Bill could, if used imaginatively, reduce the need for that.