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

I assure the Deputy that the Teaching Council will be involved in this group. The difficulty with the question of career break is that if someone has a permanent post and they leave, it can only be filled with a temporary post, which is less attractive for the school and the teacher. Career breaks need to be thought out by the school for that reason.

I acknowledge there are pressures in housing and so on, but we are trying to manage this. The difficulty arises in part because we are recruiting such a high number of posts. We are recruiting 5,000 teachers in two years, which is a significant rate of recruitment. It might have been the case that there were more teachers who were interested in part-time posts who now have access to full-time posts. That also changes the environment. There are several issues that must be monitored. I am also making changes in initial education to try to improve the supply.

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