Mr. John Boyle:

I am speaking about the the primary school sector as it is somewhat different at post-primary level. For many years we have been looking for a nationwide supply panel scheme, as our president, Ms Magner, has just alluded to. As of yesterday, these supply panels will be in 101 areas. This is a massive increase on last year when there were only six supply panels. We think it will cover in the region of 2,000 schools. That leaves 1,250 not covered by the scheme.

Other measures have been put in place which we have welcomed. Teachers who are job-sharing can now work nine days out of ten in their own schools. Many teachers have taken career breaks so that they could move closer to home and now that they are closer to home they can work for the whole year as a substitute. What we are really concerned about is the fact that young teachers cannot afford to live in the big urban areas due to pay inequality and the massive cost of rents, which have not really decreased very much during the pandemic. These young teachers will vote with their feet and will not go to the cities. In these instances, in an area like Dublin 15, for example, we have in excess of 1,200 primary school teachers and as of yesterday we have two supply panels there which are not covering all the schools. We have six teachers who are supposed to be looking after up to 700 teachers, some of whom may have to be absent for up to two weeks to self-isolate. As such it is maybe a bit early yet to say for sure but we will be demanding that that scheme be kept under review because as we get into the winter and the flu season, if more people are absent we are going to have to ensure we have cover for them. We need to ensure that what Mr. Pike is concerned about for his members will not be happening, namely that those who are not qualified to teach and have other duties to be doing, important duties around special education, will not be asked to step in to cover classes.

With the largest class sizes in Europe, the bottom line for us is that we cannot have classes split among the remaining teachers because that totally goes against the whole premise of keeping people safe.