Mr. Seán Foghlú:

We have unqualified teachers who are in schools as a result of the sunset clause in 2005. When the Teaching Council legislation was passed, anybody who was already teaching at that stage would have had a right to continue in his or her job because we could not legislate and require them not to be in the job. Schools are allowed to have unqualified teachers. Since that time we are looking at the implementation of section 30 of the education Act. We are looking at the extent to which teachers are unqualified. A number of teachers are in the process of registering with the Teaching Council to ensure they are registered. Other teachers are seeking to upskill themselves to become qualified teachers. In simple terms, the table shows there are 709 teachers who do not have an allowance.