Michael Moynihan (Cork North-West, Fianna Fail)

The Department of education is very much demand led. There are challenges. We have an overhang from the war in Ukraine. There are a number of issues that have caused us to seek a Supplementary Estimate. Teachers and SNA numbers are at an all-time high. There is something short of 80,000 teachers and just short of 25,000 SNAs in the education system.

The 1 October deadline is crucially important in how we plan for the next school year. Over the past couple of years, the Department has made huge efforts in bringing the deadline to 1 February or earlier. We saw the challenges we had, particularly in March and April-----