Mr. John Curtis:

It certainly is. Mr. Curtis and I have spoken to people in the Department. Some of our schools are really struggling. The schools will make do. Schools are marvellous places and they come up with innovative and creative solutions to try to ensure that the students are not being disadvantaged. In some cases, subjects have had to be dropped and teachers are required to teach beyond their own field and outside their comfort zones. We would acknowledge collectively that the Department is endeavouring to solve some of these issues. Earlier, we spoke about the four-year programmes, the concurrent degrees that are coming in. Small advancements are taking place that should help us in time.

Young teachers now tend to want to go abroad. There is the experiential aspect of that, especially post the Covid pandemic; people want to see the world after having been cooped up for so long. Then there is the financial issue whereby they want to go, get a few bob, come home and buy a house. It is difficult for us. There are no easy answers unless we were to introduce something like a Dublin rating, which obviously has implications across the public service and is a big issue. Certainly, things are difficult. I must commend the people in schools who are dealing with these crises because they come up with all sorts of innovative solutions, many of which entail principals and deputy principals going back into the classroom to take up the slack. There are problems but funnily enough those difficulties may not be visible to some extent because schools are such great places and the personnel in schools are so innovative in trying to deal with these things.