Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

People who are going in to teacher training are among the brightest and best still, notwithstanding the fact that applications have gone down. Applications for college courses are very cyclical. We see this all the time. When the private sector and the economy are going well lots more people gravitate towards courses such as information communication technology, business and architecture because there are enormous opportunities there. When the economy is going less well the CAO applications tend to go much more towards public sector jobs because they are more secure and one may be more likely to get a job there at a time when there are lay-offs in the private sector. That is to be expected and it is a normal, cyclical approach that happens with CAO applications.

Pay restoration is very much under way. The starting salary for a new teacher is in the region of €35,000, which is a good starting salary by any account. We are engaged in discussions with unions about a pathway to restore and equalise the pay of new entrants. That is something we want to do, but we also need to bear in mind the other demands. We want to set aside money, for example, for special needs assistants. We have more special needs assistants than we have gardaí at the moment. We also want to set aside important funds to improve the quality of our school buildings. We have to balance these different demands.

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