Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)

It is a fairly technical Bill and the only way to deal with is by going through it section by section. The Bill paves the way for the commencement of section 30 of the Teaching Council Act, which when enacted will effectively mean that all teachers in State-recognised schools whose salaries are funded by the Department of Education and Skills must be registered with the Teaching Council. It also provides for the commencement of the remaining sections of the Teaching Council Act 2001, meaning registered teachers will be required to meet the council's registration and ongoing professional education requirements, subject to the code of professional conduct and, as appropriate, the council's fitness to teach process.

I also understand the Bill provides for the amendment of section 33 of the Teaching Council Act 2001 which relates to the annual renewal by teachers of their registration. This is probably the most controversial part of the Bill. The proposed amendment would allow the council to require teachers to submit certain evidence when renewing, which may include, for example, Garda vetting information or evidence of continuing professional development. When I raised this issue with the Minister, he indicated that approximately 30,000 of 73,000 teachers who are registered with the Teaching Council have been vetted to date. This leaves 43,000 teachers who are still awaiting clearance from the Garda central vetting unit. This chronic backlog has been caused by serious staffing shortages that have resulted in a build-up of unprocessed applications and is a matter that needs to be addressed. Having introduced a vetting process for people who are dealing with children or vulnerable adults, we need to put in the resources to implement that. I ask the Minister to address that issue.

See this speech in context