Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I am committed to ensuring that schools employ registered teachers who have the qualifications needed for teaching in recognised schools. This is important in terms of quality provision to pupils and in ensuring qualified and registered teachers can secure employment.

My Department recently issued a circular requiring schools to prioritise teachers over unregistered persons and appropriately qualified teachers over teachers qualified for different sectors. Unemployed teachers are given priority over retired teachers.

Only where every avenue for sourcing a registered teacher has been exhausted may a school employ an unregistered person until a registered teacher may be located, for a maximum period of five days.

Any decision to employ an unregistered person is a local decision made by the school authorities and not my Department. The new circular, to which I referred, is aimed at ensuring that boards of management and principals only resort to having an unregistered person in very limited circumstances.

See this speech in context