Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach should answer the questions that are asked. The Taoiseach has a tendency to engage in partisan politicking in response to genuine questions asked. The Taoiseach distorts and gives dishonest responses. I never said that we were not attracting the brightest and the best. I said we had a crisis in attracting teachers in the first instance, which we have. The Taoiseach has failed to address the figures.

The Taoiseach has also failed to address the issue of the postgraduate master's degree in education. The number of applications fell from 3,000 in 2011 to 600. School principals throughout the country are articulating the crisis, particularly in second-level education. Why? It is because there has been a lack of a comprehensive response from the Government to the teacher recruitment issue.

We all know that the demographic dividend is a key factor in the increase in the number of teachers and that, in the confidence and supply agreement, Fianna Fáil forced the Government's hand to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio. However, the underlying issues in teacher recruitment remain, particularly at second level. There has been the casualisation of the workforce at second level, the postgraduate master's degree is expensive and it takes up to six years to qualify, and there is a lack of numbers in the undergraduate programmes offering concurrent degrees for teachers. All of these issues have been highlighted over the years but there has been complete inaction by the Government on the teacher recruitment crisis that schools are currently experiencing. Will the Taoiseach accept that there is such a crisis and that it needs comprehensive intervention from Government?

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