Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)

In fairness, the question I asked the Minister, in terms of the redeployment scheme, was why there is not a fair process for teachers who are living and working in Dublin and cannot afford, for example, to live in Dublin and want to move back to Mayo. The vacancies are there. Why is there not that scheme? Will the Minister engage with me in relation to that?

Has the Minister undertaken any analysis of the two-year professional master's in education? Is the additional year in that two-year programme been another barrier and will she consider reducing that back to one year?

In circumstances in which we have a teacher shortage, not enough is being done. We are not doing anything in terms of redeployment. The two-year master's, it seems, is here for good. There are teachers across the UAE who have been there five, ten or 15 years and if they return to Ireland, they will start on the lowest point of the pay scale. Those are key items that the Minister could take to address and it would go some way in alleviating the teacher shortage. The shortage is there and these are practical measures the Minister could take.

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