Mr. Pairic Clerkin:

I wish to make a further point to support what Deirdre O'Connor said about supply panels. This is the potential solution to the problem. It is correct that there is an ongoing international recruitment campaign to take our teachers away from us. We can view that as a good news story in terms of how well regarded they are internationally, which is the case. The problem is not about career breaks and filling the fixed-term positions. I have no evidence to show that any school has been unable to fill one of those year long fixed-term positions. The problem is retaining our newly qualified teachers if they do not get a fixed-term position. They are being recruited if they do not get temporary work for a year long position. Obviously if somebody is offered a lucrative post abroad he or she will take up that position. It is more attractive to teachers than entering into a lease agreement in one of our cities that will cost them a lot of money when they are unsure whether they will have work.

We know there is work for them. It should be possible for us to work out a formula in terms of how many of these teachers we will need to serve the system on a year long basis. At primary school level we know that a high percentage of our principals are entitled to a certain number of release days, or leadership days as I prefer to call them, in the year, so we know how many days are required for substitute cover for our principals alone. It is possible to provide a teacher through a supply panel to five or six principals just for those days alone. We also have facts and figures for how many teachers will be missing through maternity leave or long-term sickness leave. I realise that having teachers on a year long contract might be more expensive than having them on the substitute rate but in terms of ensuring that we have teachers to put into every classroom, it is the solution that can work.