Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In regard to the Deputy's first question, I do not agree there is a crisis in recruitment or retention within schools. We are hiring more teachers and we are lucky with the quality of both the graduates who have come through and those who are qualifying from the teaching colleges who are coming into the schools. The Minister for Education and Skills has acknowledged that in a number of particular areas within teaching we are experiencing some recruitment and retention difficulties and he has said that he will bring forward proposals and measures to deal with that.

In regard to the Deputy's second question on whether HR practices are fit for purpose, to be honest, the answer varies by sector. If I look at where we are from a Civil Service perspective, I believe we have HR practices in place that are fit for purposes but I have asked the Public Service Pay Commission to look at HR practices in the particular sectors I touched on a moment ago. I am strongly of the view that if the commission points to difficulties - matters such as career planning, allowing people to study and recognising that people might need to work at different paces at different points in their careers are at the heart of some of the issues we may need to address - it will examine them. It will look at whether such practices are consistently applied throughout the country.

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