Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 12, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following:

“(b) recognised teaching unions representing staff of an education and training board,”.

In fairness to the Minister, he took on board many of the observations made on Committee Stage, particularly with regard to increasing the membership of the boards. We wanted to ensure they are reflective of society and that there will be a diversity of opinion on them. In fairness, an amendment is proposed which will increase the membership of the board from 18 to 21. The Minister also took into account some of the suggestions made by Opposition parties at committee level with regard to having nominating bodies.

This amendment seeks to ensure the newly configured boards will be as representative as possible. One of the reasons for including this amendment is that because the boards will deal with education and training, there is a need to have a recognised teaching union representative on the board. We ask the Minister of State to consider this seriously. If a recognised teacher union representative is in place, he or she will represent teaching staff and the interests of the teachers will be protected. Amendments further down the line seek to ensure there are representatives of the business community and adult learners are on the board. This amendment is just an extension of that. In order to ensure there is diversity of opinion on the board, we want this amendment included so the teaching profession will have the right to sit on one of these boards.

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