Mr. John Boyle:

I am glad the Cathaoirleach focused on that. We had a recent engagement with the leaders of the Teaching Council because we recognise that in a teacher supply crisis we need to be a bit more creative so one of the issues we discussed was the Gaeilge requirement. We are well aware there are many primary trained teachers coming out of St. Mary’s College in Belfast who have Gaeilge to a high standard. The Teaching Council will be considering a fast-tracking for those, should they wish to. It is not that we want to try to cajole all the teachers in Northern Ireland to come down here but we would like to give them the option. The bigger concern for the post-primary sector is there is not as much movement in terms of those issues. We feel that for the primary sector which we represent in the South - we represent both sectors in the North – that the creativity will be needed is that there are so many jobs in education that are not mainstream class teaching. These are obviously not filled at the moment because principals have to get a mainstream class teacher in the first instance or the parents will not be too happy, so unfortunately the vulnerable children are then suffering because there are not enough teachers in the rent-pressure areas to teach the vulnerable. In those classes, it is not as necessary to have as high a standard of Gaeilge when teaching English as an additional language, EAL, for example or special education. The Government should be laying on courses, not only for teachers from Northern Ireland, but any other teachers who are fully qualified from other jurisdictions. We have a really big concern that many teachers who were born and bred in Northern Ireland, and some from the Republic as well, are training in Aberystwyth, Aberdeen, Strawberry Hill and in various courses in England, Scotland and Wales. For example, in Scotland, the starting salary is £33,000, 20 miles across from Belfast, whereas it is only £24,000 in Northern Ireland. This is as a result of what the Tory Government is doing to the North at the moment. The Tory Government is obviously trying to freeze them out with the intention of trying to force certain parties back into the Assembly and it is workers who are suffering as a result. It is a big issue.

On the Gaeilge, we are open to creative solutions because the children have to get a teacher. The vulnerable children have to get teachers. If a teacher initially does not have Gaeilge but is given a pathway towards achieving it and a time limit of maybe three years that would be a better solution.