Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I apologise for my absence but I had to attend another meeting. I read the submission in advance and I hope that I do not repeat anything that was said earlier.

Pay inequality is at the heart of these issues. We will not retain teachers nor attract people to the profession as long as the injustice exists. It is simply is not right to have two colleagues teaching side by side and classroom by classroom but insist that they are not paid the same because one joined the teaching profession in a certain year.

References are continually made to young teachers starting on a salary of around €36,000 or €35,959 and rising. One cannot survive on that salary if one lives in Dublin city because one simply will be unable to afford to rent a home. Let us not forget that a young teacher who starts working at the age of 25 or 26 will be in his or her 50s before they reach the top of the salary scale. That is a lengthy climb to reach the top of the salary scale and is a matter that needs to be addressed.

My next question is on secondary level education. Are students and their parents surveyed during a management, leadership and learning, MLL, evaluation? Is one of the questions on whether teachers are available to teach certain subjects? Is there a lack of teachers in certain subjects? Has that situation had an affect on teachers and the education of children? Has research into the subject been undertaken? Have students in primary and secondary schools been surveyed about the impact on them due to a lack of teachers?

Yesterday it was announced in media reports that suicide intervention training will be provided in schools. We need to provide proper mental health supports to teachers as teachers are overworked and under-resourced. Although training in suicide prevention is crucial, it seems to be a new addition to the long list of duties for teachers.

Yesterday it was also announced that the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, will deliver training on how teachers can respond to an unexpected critical incident. On 27 June, officials from NEPS appeared were before the Joint Committee on Future of Mental Health Care. They informed members that there is one psychologist for every 25 schools and that the service is very under-resourced and understaffed. In fact, the situation is so bad that if a psychologist who works for NEPS avails of maternity leave, there is no-one to replace her. It is incredible that NEPS has been asked to train teachers who are overworked and under-resourced in suicide prevention.

We are finding out from our mental health committee that we need proper counsellors in our schools and that we must not add to teachers' workload. Suicide prevention is a huge responsibility to give to any teacher. There are far-reaching consequences. The mental health supports should be in place and they are crucial in our schools, but I do not know that burdening our teachers is the way to provide them. Then there is the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, which provides the training. There are under 200 NEPS schools in Ireland. How many schools do we have in total? I is nearly 4,000? Despite this, we are saying NEPS will train more teachers. This needs to be looked at.

We are trying to incentivise college graduates to take certain subjects. There is no denying the shortage of teachers in certain subjects, but it will remain an uphill battle for Government to attract students into the teaching profession, or even to hold on to them, since so many do not receive equal pay for equal work. It is this inequality which is leading to our teachers leaving our shores. There is no campaign that will bring them back home when they know that their quality of life will be less in their home country, and that is a very sad fact. We need to address this fundamental injustice. They are struggling to attain that quality of life, especially in our cities, with current market rental values. Our teachers have been devalued over successive years. They are highly skilled, specialised practitioners with far-reaching responsibilities. Apart from the job of educating our children, they act in loco parentis. To be effective, any measure to recruit and retain our teachers must address this fundamental injustice and we must ensure equal pay for equal work.