Mr. Páiric Clerkin:

A pilot scheme has been in place over the past year to examine this issue. It was in place a number of years ago. One of the objectives is to try to retain our younger teachers in the country, especially those who might not have been able to secure a temporary position for the full year, or indeed a permanent position. If we are asking them to take up positions, especially in urban areas, we need to give them some form of security and one of the means of doing that is to place them on the panel and give them a temporary contract for the year. The scheme in place over the past year has worked very successfully and there has been no wastage associated with it. Conditions have moved on since it was last in place in that we now have systems such as EducationPosts.ieand Sub Seeker where ourselves and National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, NAPD, are working together to ensure we have the technology to place every available teacher in an empty classroom. That is something we have worked on over the past two years. We are very confident we can ensure that every single teacher placed on a panel is placed in a school on a daily basis and that there is absolutely no wastage but it is a critical issue in terms of retention and encouraging teachers, especially younger teachers, to stay in Ireland rather than go abroad.