Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of the difficulty of schools finding replacement teachers. It is a huge problem that has been made worse by Covid. While it is a national problem, I will give one example from my own constituency of Greenhills Community College in Walkinstown, where a teacher has gone on maternity leave and the school has been unable to replace her. It has been told that it could be another five or six months. Whatever form the leaving certificate may take, there are students now who have no physics or chemistry teacher, who will not be able to have any teaching for this leaving certificate coming up, no matter what shape it takes. Teacher recruitment has been made worse by Covid, but there are long-standing issues with it. We need to do more to incentivise people. What can be done in the short term to help schools like Greenhills Community College in Walkinstown? The case concerns a teacher on maternity leave, not the sudden loss of a teacher due to Covid.

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