Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is my point. It is not satisfactory that we do not have enough physics teachers but the Minister is doing nothing about it. He is almost putting his hands up and saying he cannot do anything about it. Of course he can. The organisations responsible for training our secondary teachers must be given some directions. Let us be honest. A student with a 2.2 degree in a subject which very few teachers teach is more valuable than somebody with a first class honours degree in a subject that too many teachers teach. That is a fact. The Minister has to get to grips with this issue. It is not good enough to blame the colleges or the Teaching Council. The Minister is responsible for this, and he must get a grip on it because he is the one going around announcing plans to have children trained up in mathematics and coding.

The Minister referred to upskilling. He cannot upskill a teacher who does not exist. That is the problem. Some of these teachers simply are not available. The Minister appears to be sitting on an unpublished report. He tells me there are no recommendations regarding this but I am shocked that the report has been sitting on a shelf for the past year and a half. It is shocking, disgraceful and a shame on the administration of the education system. How will the young teachers who cannot get a job because there are too many of them in a particular subject feel about that, and also the schools that cannot get teachers for other subjects? There is a complete mismatch in that regard and it appears that nothing is being done about it.

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