Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I thank the 29 Deputies, including myself, who have contributed to this Second Stage debate. If these closing remarks are taken into account, 30 speeches will have been made by the time this debate concludes. That is evidence of the genuine interest in education of a wide range of Deputies across all sections of this House. I cannot recall a previous occasion when a Second Stage debate involved so many speakers. We could probably have had more. A number of issues were raised during the debate. As they were raised in different ways, I will take them by theme, rather than citing the Deputies who raised them.

This Bill is different from the previous Bill of the same name. It does not refer to the community national schools that will come under the supervision of the VECs, which will soon be known as local education and training boards. As Members will be aware, we will introduce a comprehensive Bill to consolidate the nine existing Acts that relate to the VECs. This legislation will also consolidate more than 600 statutory instruments in order to provide for the new 16 local education and training boards which will be the successors to the VECs. It was deemed appropriate that the provision for the community national schools should be rooted in that legislation, along with all the other activities to be undertaken by the new education and training boards, rather than be established in a separate piece of legislation. There were good reasons that my predecessor wanted to afford it a statutory basis, although it has not been rolled out properly as yet. Currently, there are five and a further number will be announced soon, along with the structures for their boards of management and so on. I thank the Deputies for their contributions and their support for the measure.

Much concern was expressed by Members who were teachers in a previous life, so to speak, about the role of the Teaching Council. They were concerned that it has been established for quite some time; that it was given €5 million in start-up funding; and that it simply collects €90 from the 73,000 registered teachers and there is a question as to what is given to teachers in return. For the information of those Members who are teachers, for the information of the House and for the record, the Teaching Council will now become a proper self-regulating, professional organisation like the Medical Council or the Law Society or the architects' professional body. The Teaching Council will police and maintain the standards of its own professional members.

Much lax and loose comment has been made about lazy and indifferent teachers, teachers who cannot be sacked and poor teaching performance. There have been complaints that teachers are a law unto themselves. This is a kind of easy soft talk which we have all heard. Section 30 of the Teaching Council Act will be activated by this Bill, albeit with a qualification and I will deal with the necessity for that qualification. The Teaching Council will have the power to ensure that not only are teachers registered, but they pay a variable fee as in the case of retired teachers who wish to remain registered or apprentice teachers who are not yet employed full-time. Most professions provide a differential fee cost depending on employment status. This is now a matter to be decided by the Teaching Council and the new council will come into existence later this month. I urge it to use its powers to address the criticisms. I will bring to the attention of the Teaching Council the very strident criticisms made by a number of teachers. Deputy O'Mahony from Fine Gael and Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan from the Technical Group are both former teachers and their criticisms were quite scathing of the role and relevance of the council. This is a task for the Teaching Council. Deputy Dowds noted that once one is probated, one is a qualified teacher. In my view, nobody is a permanently qualified anything because it is a continuous learning exercise and there has to be continual professional development in a rapidly changing world. It is right and proper that evidence of having participated in continuing professional development will be a requirement for continued registration with the Teaching Council, as I understand it. However, as I think I am obliged to do, I will be bringing to the attention of the new incoming board of the Teaching Council the criticisms and comments made by people who know what they are talking about because they are former teachers.

The question was raised as to why we have retreated from the absolutist position of only permitting a registered teacher to be paid with moneys from the State and therefore an unqualified teacher cannot be used. The answer is because, in some very extreme circumstances, the principal of a school will have the choice between sending those pupils home or closing the school. I issued a circular following the annual conferences of the teaching unions last Easter in which the regulations, guidelines and rules governing the facility and the possibility of such an occurrence were tightened. This will now have the force of law.

On the question of whether retired teachers should be re-employed in schools, in my view, they should not. There is now a differential rate of pay to discourage this practice and retired teachers who return will be paid at the basic rate of pay. Formerly, they were re-employed at the rate at which they had retired, the top rate. This practice has now been changed. On the question of whether a cosy relationship may exist between a new principal and a former principal, one can perhaps suspect this is so and it may be a case of the devil one knows. All these situations prevailed. It is the principal of a school and, by extension, the board of management who decides on who will be hired. We will be addressing this situation by empowering parents and asking schools to indicate the composition of their panels of reserve teachers. It is normal and reasonable in this day and age to encourage young teachers to be hired in those circumstances and for young teachers who have not been fully probated to be given the opportunity to overcome the catch-22 situation to which Deputy Dowds referred, that experience is needed to get a job.

We have not acceded to the request recently communicated to me to make amendments that would insist on the absolute necessity to employ only qualified teachers even on an emergency basis. I do not regard this as a practical measure. It was a bad piece of legislation when it was first enacted and I am making the necessary change now. As a result, we can now activate section 30 of the Teaching Council Act, which means the council can make it mandatory and can perform the role of a professional body for a profession such as teaching needs. If some teachers are not performing to a high standard, a complaint can be made to the Teaching Council and the council of peers will decide whether the complaint should be upheld or if the person can continue to be registered as a teacher. The issue of the disciplining and policing of the profession of teaching is now totally in the hands of the profession itself, which is where it should reside in my view. If a parent, school or citizen has a grouse about a particular teacher, they can now register that complaint and let the council proceed in the required manner.

The Bill changes the use of the word "agreement" to use of the word "consultation". The employment control framework fixed in absolute terms the number of people in employment in the public sector, including teachers. If a teacher is redeployed as a result of being supernumerary in a school, in the past such individuals had a veto on where they would go because their agreement was essential. It was frequently the case that there would have been agreement between trade union and management sides but the individual concerned would refuse to be redeployed. I will deal with this matter in some detail in an amendment on Committee Stage and I have dealt with it in the other House. I am quite prepared to have a formal consultation with the social partners in the education space to achieve a clear idea of the exact meaning of consultation in this instance so that there is broad consensus. The absolutist position of former times will not apply, where an individual, de facto, had a veto on redeployment if he or she refused to agree. The real meat in the sandwich, so to speak, is that until such time as we have redeployed existing teachers from the panel to new locations and opportunities, we cannot hire new teachers. It is not as if we are free agents; in order to acquire new teachers into the system, all surplus teachers on redeployment panels must first be relocated. This is the nub of the question about agreement and consultation. I am quite happy to discuss this matter further on Committee Stage.

Many other issues have been raised in this debate which are not, as such, germane to this legislation but I will refer to them. Deputy Catherine Byrne made a very incisive contribution which is rooted in her own experience. We share adjoining constituencies and some of the area to which she referred used to be in the Dublin South-East constituency. The issue of stigmatisation has travelled with the DEIS label. The label of being from a disadvantaged area is chosen from a set of socio-economic criteria. One can be highly disadvantaged from a very wealthy family if one is not loved, cherished and minded. I got my knuckles rapped for saying that a child who goes to bed at night without having a story read to him or her is an abused child. I accept fully it is not the right use of the word "abuse", because of other connotations, but it is certainly a deprived child.

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