Mr. John MacGabhann:

It is an interesting question but is not something that can be addressed in the current circumstances because we do not have the time or the window for it. We need to consider what can be done at post-primary level where, unfortunately, we do not have the situation that Mr. Boyle has described in the primary sector. We do not have an excess of teachers. We do not have an over-supply. In fact we have a supply crisis that has simply been anaesthetised for the period of the Covid-19 closure.

Two things can be done specifically. The first is that those undertaking the second year of the professional masters of education course, that is, people who are well socialised into the teaching and school environment, could be deployed, on a properly paid basis, to fill subject-specific gaps across the system. I am unsure whether this would fill every gap but it would help.

The other thing relates to preparation for all of this. The principal teachers and others in the senior management structures of the schools require assistance. The assistance, as I said previously, will largely come from within the existing cohort. We have models that are used for assistance where examinations are concerned. One scheme was called examination aid. More recently, it has been called calculated grades aid. We could have a Covid-19 aid with someone who would have the title of "Covid-19 planning aid" with an appropriate and relatively modest budget following that.

On the broader issue of streaming classes from some centralised position here, there and thither, there are students who will give feedback and we must have teachers who will receive that feedback, mark assignments and so forth. We cannot create an overload for individual teachers. We still have to maintain what would be a reasonable workload for teachers. That means we require not a concentration of students with one teacher but more teachers to ensure that we do not get an over-concentration of students.