Mr. Tomás Ó Ruairc:

A question was asked about teachers who qualified outside the State. We treat all applicants from outside the State in accordance with the terms of the EU directive which provides for mutual recognition of qualifications received in any other state in the world. The process thereafter may require conditions to be applied to make up for certain shortfalls. The underlying principle is to make sure anybody on the register in Ireland has had to meet the exact same standards. Therefore, those who qualify abroad should not have to meet lower standards than those who qualify here. It is about fairness and equity. That has been the common refrain, rightly so.

We process approximately 500 applications per annum from people who qualified outside the State. Approximately 80% are from the United Kingdom which are typically subject to a desk-bound process, which means that there is a fairly tight turnaround time. Approximately 10% are from other countries in which English is spoken, while the other 10% are from countries in which other languages are spoken, which means that translation costs may arise. We have engaged with the migrant teacher project which was mentioned by the Minister in his speech in January to the Irish Primary Principals Network. We will continue that engagement to see how the process can be streamlined further. We are conscious of the need to review the subject criteria in terms of the granularity of the requirements. We are also conscious of the need to look at the Teaching Council's requirements in the qualifications assessment process to see whether they can be streamlined further.

I am happy to add a note of clarification to the clear statements we have heard about vetting. Under the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Act 2012 and the Teaching Council Acts, every teacher on the register has to be vetted. In 2017 we processed 40,000 vetting applications under the e-vetting system and 12,000 vetting applications under the paper-based system.

Senator Robbie Gallagher spoke about data and asked how many teachers were working abroad. One of the key issues mentioned by Ms Russell and highlighted in the report, Striking the Balance, is the need to get a better handle on data across the system. Those on the register now provide their addresses by means of self-declaration. The system of online renewal allows a teacher who is renewing from abroad to use his or her home address with Mammy and Daddy in Dublin or wherever it might be. We are open to conducting a survey of the register, or perhaps particular sectors of the register, to determine where people are based. A targeted roadshow campaign, along the lines of that mentioned by Ms Russell, might be of assistance in that regard. We know that there is an over-supply of teachers in Northern Ireland, for example. We also know that there are Irish teachers working in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom, the Middle East and other jurisdictions that have been mentioned during the meeting.

There is a sense that we need to get the hygiene factor - things like pay equality - sorted first in order that we can approach people with a clear narrative. I suspect that there are people abroad who want to come home. The system needs to make it easier for them to do so. An online portal to have a single application point would make it easier for them to apply for jobs. When I qualified as a teacher in 1999, I photocopied an application form 60 times and sent it to the various education and training boards. The modern technology available should make it relatively straightforward to make the process much easier for people. There are many ways in which we can do this, for example, by facilitating Skype interviews from abroad. We are keen to move more and more of the council's application process online. We want to move the initial registration application process which is currently paper-based online. We are keen to move in that direction.

I hope I have dealt with most of the queries raised by the committee. I will be happy to take more if they arise.