Dr. Lynn Ramsey:

The regulation amendment the Senator mentioned related to induction. She is correct that during the Covid-19 pandemic we had a time-bound regulation which allowed teachers who had qualified outside the Republic of Ireland but had not completed their induction to do so in Ireland. That was to help with the teacher supply situation, which was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. That regulation finished in February of this year, but the council is now at an advanced stage of planning to see whether we can introduce a new regulation which would provide opportunities for teachers who qualified outside Ireland to return to do their induction here. The justification for that is grounded in the teacher supply demographics. We are at an advanced stage of planning. As we said to colleagues, we need to go through a proportionality assessment under a new EU directive as part of that process, but we are at an advanced stage of planning for that.