Mr. Páiric Clerkin:

Currently, school leaders who want to step back are told they can do so if there is a vacancy in the school but that if they step back into that vacancy they become the most junior member of staff. This is a debate we need to have.

This ties into how we promote principalship. This is important because we need to look to the future. To go back to my earlier question, perhaps there is political disconnect. I know funding is an issue and we need to debate it. If the State is going to have only short-term aspirations for the next few years and will only look at how we can resolve an issue in the short term without looking at long-term implications, it is important that organisations such as the Irish Primary Principals Network look at these issues long term. We want to build and promote leadership capacity to ensure children will have the very best leaders available to them. I believe passionately that one way in which we can promote such a culture is through stakeholders meeting and discussing how we ensure the change agenda is managed effectively and that it has long-term, and not just short-term, impacts. We must focus on embedding.