Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht bheith anseo chun an ábhar dáiríre seo a phlé linn. I thank the Minister for being here. I understand she has a meeting later today with the stakeholders to discuss this very important issue. It is an issue that is escalating quite significantly. The Minister will be aware of its seriousness but for the benefit of the House and the record, I will say that we have a severe crisis in teacher supply at present in both primary and post-primary schools. In my view, this is primarily caused by the cost-of-living crisis, which is at its most severe particularly in Dublin but also in the other major urban centres. Teachers, particularly lower-paid younger teachers, cannot afford the rental costs and have very little prospect of being able to manage a mortgage in those big urban centres. There are multiple examples here in Dublin in particular. In Coolmine Community School, the school has had to take a decision not to offer subjects such as woodwork and metalwork and has had to combine classes for other subjects. This situation is replicated in other schools. Members may have seen the situation in St. James's Primary School in Dublin city on the "Six One News" a number of nights ago, where on 28 November, three teachers were out sick but only one substitute teacher could be found, leading to a number of classes being combined. St James's is also a base school for the supply panels. I am very supportive of supply panels as an idea but because of the existing supply issues, they are under-resourced. The school advertised for a position on that supply panel but absolutely no applications came in; there were zero applications. Some 60% of spaces on the supply panels in Dublin are vacant.

Fundamentally, this is about housing. I appreciate the Minister is the Minister for Education but she has a collective responsibility for the housing situation and I hope she can use her voice at Cabinet to try to address that. While the Minister cannot address all these issues on her own, are there things the Department of Education can do, in and of itself? I believe there are and they need to be considered. I acknowledge that some of these actions have been taken but there are others. At post-primary level in particular, it is about the creation of additional positions. We have too many teachers who are on insecure temporary contracts and who are underemployed. That is a key part of addressing the supply issue at this level. At primary level, there are similar issues. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the requirement for teachers who trained in Britain to complete their induction in Britain was waived by the Department. Something similar should be examined here and I ask the Minister to look at that at today's meeting. Foremost, I ask the Minister to examine the following.

This Christmas hundreds of teachers will return home from Britain, Scotland and the Middle East. They would love to be teaching here in Ireland but they cannot be offered a permanent position after 1 October at post-primary level and 1 November at primary level. If these teachers want to stay at home after Christmas their best chance is to take a temporary contract until the summer, go without pay over the summer months and then take their chances on getting a permanent position or a contract of indefinite duration in September. Would it not be far better, as was the case until approximately eight years ago, if the Department could allow permanent contracts to be offered to them? This would mean those teachers returning from Dubai, England or wherever could come home and be offered a permanent job and get paid over the summer. They would stay in the system. Will the Minister look at this? Can we offer permanent jobs to the hundreds of teachers, and perhaps more than this, who are working abroad at present?

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