James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. On her last point about the constituent's query, if she wants to send that to my office I will happily take a look at the details of it. I will say, based on prior knowledge before I was ever a Minister in this Department, the Teaching Council has a particular set of requirements. Somebody even within the State may come a cropper - the Deputy mentioned, I think, philosophy or some of the courses. There is a very specific set of requirements around undergraduate subject choice and then usually a postgraduate qualification in teaching methodology. Those two must be combined or follow in sequence to be recognised by the Teaching Council. I do not know the details of the Deputy's constituent. I am happy to take a look at it but it may be less to do with the UK qualification and more to do with the qualification itself. I wanted to flag that; it may be of interest or assistance to the Deputy's constituent.

There is provision within the CTA, the existing agreement, and some professional sectors such as veterinary, architects, legal and others can come to an agreement which would, I suppose, be arrived at between the two professional bodies and the sectors. That would effectively reinstate the EU professional qualifications directive for that sector. That could be implemented by the competent authority on request and will form part of future developments.

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