Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I too like my colleagues, welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion brought forward by my colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne. I acknowledge his good work in this area. Other Deputies have alluded to two major problems. Teachers are leaving from their early 20s to their mid- to late 30s and working abroad in cities such as Dubai because of the better pay and conditions available there, and that is a problem. Furthermore, the cost of living in Ireland is going out of control. I have raised this a number of times in this House. Young teachers cannot access mortgages, save the deposits required or make their payments. They cannot even afford motor insurance. The cost of living is therefore a major issue. Pay and conditions also need to be addressed to attract them to stay in this country. I have spoken to staff from a number of schools but I focused on two particular schools before coming in here today. Staff from one school told me it has a real shortage of teachers in the area of special needs. That is a major problem and a big difficulty for them. Furthermore, there is a major problem with teacher shortages in languages, including Irish, home economics and physics. One such school was not able to find a metalwork teacher, as a result of which it had to shut down that subject this year, starting in September of last year, and was not able to make it available to students. It is an awful shame that students who could be very applied in that area are not able to access a subject that could be one of their strengths because of a lack of teaching resources. As all my colleagues have outlined, this is a major issue. I am sure the Minister is aware of it and I hope he and his officials will be able to address it. I welcome the union representatives here this evening. I know that many management bodies in the different schools gave detailed submissions to the Department before Christmas outlining these issues and highlighting the problems in the hope that the Minister might deliver solutions.

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