Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not correct to suggest that there is a massive crisis in primary teaching. As the Deputy knows, the Government has reduced the class size twice in the last three years, and last year we provided 1,093 additional teachers. This September an additional 1,160 teachers will start. That amounts to 2,250 additional teachers in the last two years. Those are permanent, full-time positions. There has been no difficulty in filling those positions. They have been filled, and there are currently a total of 37,000 teachers across the primary school system. In urban DEIS schools there are now smaller class sizes. There is great strength in that.

In respect of resource teaching for children with special needs, even in those very difficult crisis years we continued to expand those numbers, and the number of teachers provided for resource teaching has increased by 50% over the years since 2011. We have a well staffed primary school system, and we continue to make very substantial improvements. Next year I will be making 637 additional teaching positions available.

On the issue of supply and demand, there is no doubt that we have successfully filled the full-time positions by recruiting at that level, with over 2,250 additional teachers hired in a very short space of time and where 1,750 have been recruited. However, substitution may involve working for one or two days here and there. I recognise that poses difficulties within an economy where there are increasing opportunities. It is less attractive for teachers to wait for short periods of placement. In order to ease that I have made a number of changes. There are a very significant number of career breaks - 1,750 in the primary system - so I have made arrangements to increase the limits for people who are on career breaks. They are now allowed to do substitution work for up to 90 days. I have also arranged that those who have recently retired can, if they remain registered, take up opportunities for substitution positions.

For a number of years there was an effort to restrict the use of retired teachers to fill those positions because there was a need to prioritise those who were coming out of college who did not have opportunities.

There is some pressure in this area but I took the opportunity to examine the recent trends. It might reassure the Deputy to know that there is an increase this year over last year in the payments we are making for substitution to people who are qualified to substitute. We are paying more people who are qualified, available and in the schools to meet casual vacancies than we were last year. It is significantly more, going from €100 million to €125 million. That is a 25% increase in the payments being made to people who are undertaking substitution duties. Unless there has been a massive surge in absences that I cannot see, we are making provision.

However, there is no doubt that there is a particular problem in Dublin. I will monitor this issue carefully but according to the most recent data I have, and admittedly it is data from the end of 2016, some 7.5% of the days when there could have been substitutes were not paid. In other words, people were not available to be paid substitution where substitution was justified.

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