Fr. Paul Connell:

We are suggesting that it be made. Obviously we do not wish in any sense to incentivise unqualified teachers in the classroom. That is an absolute. If, however, it were relaxed to allow for 30 days pending registration, this may help the situation.

A question was asked about what has particularly exacerbated teacher supply. There have been a number of issues. The increases in enrolments in schools and the growth in numbers form a big issue. There was also an unfortunate by-product of the new junior cycle and the way it was managed. We as the management bodies, including Education and Training Boards Ireland, ETBI and the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools, ACCS had suggested a different approach. The 40 minutes allocated for teacher training each week, which is very important and which we support, ended up having to put another 700 teachers into the system. If this had been done differently, it might have avoided that difficulty. A number of issues have come together to cause the crisis.