Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The Minister is inconsistent because she is introducing legislation that will regularise the employment of untrained teachers while at the same time she says it is her Department's policy not to employ any untrained teachers. I ask her to clarify her intentions in this regard.

Have whole-school evaluations been conducted in any of the schools employing untrained teachers? If so, there should have been a clear warning sign to the Minister and the Department that untrained and unqualified teachers are being used especially when 30% of graduates of University College Dublin were unemployed in 2009 and many of those are teachers. It is unacceptable that untrained teachers are being employed in schools.

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