Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

Regarding the phone ban, for the most part we all agree on it, particularly in primary schools. It is not the case every child brings a phone into school but we are seeing younger and younger children with phones and on social media apps. There are implications that can arise from that but they are also distracting in schools. Regarding a legislative ban, it would be about implementing it. Irrespective of whether there is legislation or otherwise, we need schools and parents to work with us to make sure this is effective. There needs to be consultation with parents. That is what we have asked for in the circular that has gone out to schools. How is this implemented? There is the option, as is currently the case in a number of schools, for parents to agree not to buy phones. Funding is provided to Webwise to give support and clarity to parents as to how they would implement that. Greystones was the school that started it. A school in Termonfeckin mentioned this week that it was doing it. It is about providing guidance and support and helping schools and parents in what they are doing.

When it comes to secondary school, we have to recognise a nine-year-old is different from a 19-year-old. The more transition year students we have, the greater likelihood they will be 18- or 19-years old doing their leaving certificate. It is about working with them. How do we remove phones from the school day while acknowledging there might be times they need them? There might be times they are going to extra-curricular activities. There might be times they have to leave early or they have to use their phone. It is about putting those parameters in place and supporting schools and, importantly, students.

Students and teachers would like the right to switch off and not have to engage at all hours and to respond. That is something I have heard from the teacher representative associations as well. There is certainly a way we can try to align that and make sure teachers do not feel they should be sending messages late at night and that pupils have to reply either. That is something we can work on.

On teacher supply, there is a very set way in which teachers are allocated based on enrolment in September. I appreciate that can be frustrating if a school is losing a teacher based on the previous year's enrolment and it will not get the teacher back until the year after. If the projected enrolment is increasing, this can be appealed. There are schools I know of that have made appeals in the past week and have been successful in keeping that teacher. Overall, in terms of teacher supply, 98% of our allocated teaching posts are filled. I appreciate there are certain areas, certain schools and certain subjects where that is a challenge, whether it is teacher retention or filling posts, but 98% of posts are filled.

A number of measures have been taken in recent years to ensure we keep teachers and encourage more into the profession. The STEM bursary of €2,000 was introduced in this years budget. It is a €2,000 bursary for teachers graduating with a professional masters degree in education. More recently, I announced teachers who conduct their training will be able to get the permanent contract after a year instead of two years. We are making moves to make sure we can recognise qualifications from abroad and make it easier for teachers to come home. I am working with the Department on ways we can help teachers, in particular for schools with teachers who have a base-level degree in certain subjects, but it is not what they are teaching. There have been moves made to make sure such teachers can upskill and start training in those areas, so they might have three subjects instead on two. Some subjects introduced recently are science, physics, Irish, computer science, politics, French and possibly one other. This is with a view to making sure teachers who are there can fill the posts that are available.

Regarding SNAs, my intention is allocations will happen the same way as for teachers. The Senator is right. In the past couple of weeks we have been allocating SNAs. It is too late, and it is not fair on SNAs or on the schools. The plan for next year is, similar to allocation of places for children, I want to bring forward the timeline in order that when we are allocating teachers, SNAs and school will know where they are going at that time. There will be an appeals process, as with teachers. That is so everything is aligned, synched up and people have time a sight of where they are working and going.

There will be and has to be redeployment within the system, where the need is not in a school. Importantly, the new redeployment scheme that is to be introduced next year will mean that SNAs do not have to essentially resign, become unemployed and apply again to a different school. If they are being moved, they will be able to move to a school within their area and somebody will not be sent from Cork to Galway. They will have to work within the schools to do that.

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