Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for taking the time to discuss this most important issue which not only affects primary schools within my constituency but across the State. We are facing a massive crisis at primary level, which needs to be addressed by the Government. Principals across the State and indeed in my constituency of Dublin North-West are facing huge difficulties in obtaining substitute teachers to cover sick days and maternity leave, and in filling permanent positions. This has resulted in pupils being crammed into other classrooms, or in the case of smaller schools closing for the day. In 2017, this is unacceptable. We are dealing with the future of our State and we cannot afford for pupils to be left behind in the education system due to a lack of substitute teachers to cover illness or maternity leave. I do not believe it is good enough for the Government to congratulate itself on budget 2018, having reduced the pupil-teacher ratio to 26:1 one week only for that ratio to become 26:0 the next week due to the lack of a substitute teacher or the lack of cover.

One of the issues we are facing on this issue is the number of young, newly qualified teachers being recruited for positions in the Middle East. We have seen this affect our health service with nurses taking up employment abroad and now we are facing this in our education services. When answering my parliamentary question on 24 October the Minister advised that his Department has no evidence of a recent or current shortage of primary teachers. The evidence is there to be seen in the data from the academic years 2010-2011 and 2014-2015 provided by the Teaching Council working group. The same group noted that substitute cover was required 915,000 days per year on average. However, teachers were employed by schools for an annual average of 590,000 days of substitute cover, which means that only 62% of substitutable absence was actually covered.

I am worried that this has resulted in special needs assistants, SNAs, being taken away from the most vulnerable pupils in an effort to cover these absences. Such testimony has been provided to me by a number of principals and teachers. This is completely unacceptable and something which will unquestionably worry the families of these students.

Another concern is the drastic affect this will have on DEIS schools, many of which are in my constituency. I have met with the Catholic Primary School Management Association, CPSMA, which believes it is these schools which will be affected the most by this shortage. There are also a number of DEIS schools in the Minister's constituency, and I am sure he does not want to see those schools or their students being at a further disadvantage when it comes to staffing issues. He is aware that the CPSMA conducted a survey of principals on this matter. The results are startling and the feedback from principals is extremely worrying. Some of the relevant feedback was as follows, and I quote:

I accidentally entered Galway instead of Dublin into the TextaSub service one day and I got about 15 responses. I spoke with many of them and offered them the position. They informed me the rent was too expensive in Dublin to sub here.

Another example is as follows:

For the last sick leave I rang 16 qualified teachers and sent out a TextaSub to 112 substitute teachers. Only one person responded to the text.

This appear to me to not only be a shortage, but a potential crisis in the making. Only 66% of substitutable days were covered. If we are to look ahead to Saturday in Copenhagen, were Martin O'Neill to have three injured players on the pitch but only be able to substitute in two players, people would have to ask about the managerial effectiveness at play there. It is perfectly reasonable to ask about the managerial effectiveness at play here if we can only substitute in two teachers for every three missing on a given day.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I hope the Deputy is not tempting fate.

Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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I hope I am not tempting fate, but I have no doubt that Martin O'Neill and the boys in green are adequately prepared for any such issues that arise in the game. Nevertheless, I would be keen to hear the Minister's response to the issues that have arisen.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It is not correct to suggest that there is a massive crisis in primary teaching. As the Deputy knows, the Government has reduced the class size twice in the last three years, and last year we provided 1,093 additional teachers. This September an additional 1,160 teachers will start. That amounts to 2,250 additional teachers in the last two years. Those are permanent, full-time positions. There has been no difficulty in filling those positions. They have been filled, and there are currently a total of 37,000 teachers across the primary school system. In urban DEIS schools there are now smaller class sizes. There is great strength in that.

In respect of resource teaching for children with special needs, even in those very difficult crisis years we continued to expand those numbers, and the number of teachers provided for resource teaching has increased by 50% over the years since 2011. We have a well staffed primary school system, and we continue to make very substantial improvements. Next year I will be making 637 additional teaching positions available.

On the issue of supply and demand, there is no doubt that we have successfully filled the full-time positions by recruiting at that level, with over 2,250 additional teachers hired in a very short space of time and where 1,750 have been recruited. However, substitution may involve working for one or two days here and there. I recognise that poses difficulties within an economy where there are increasing opportunities. It is less attractive for teachers to wait for short periods of placement. In order to ease that I have made a number of changes. There are a very significant number of career breaks - 1,750 in the primary system - so I have made arrangements to increase the limits for people who are on career breaks. They are now allowed to do substitution work for up to 90 days. I have also arranged that those who have recently retired can, if they remain registered, take up opportunities for substitution positions.

For a number of years there was an effort to restrict the use of retired teachers to fill those positions because there was a need to prioritise those who were coming out of college who did not have opportunities.

There is some pressure in this area but I took the opportunity to examine the recent trends. It might reassure the Deputy to know that there is an increase this year over last year in the payments we are making for substitution to people who are qualified to substitute. We are paying more people who are qualified, available and in the schools to meet casual vacancies than we were last year. It is significantly more, going from €100 million to €125 million. That is a 25% increase in the payments being made to people who are undertaking substitution duties. Unless there has been a massive surge in absences that I cannot see, we are making provision.

However, there is no doubt that there is a particular problem in Dublin. I will monitor this issue carefully but according to the most recent data I have, and admittedly it is data from the end of 2016, some 7.5% of the days when there could have been substitutes were not paid. In other words, people were not available to be paid substitution where substitution was justified.

Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister. Let me be clear that I am not saying there has not been significant progress made under the Minister and in his Department with regard to teaching, the reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio, the increase in budgets and the increase in standards in both primary and secondary levels. This specific issue has been brought to my attention by the CPSMA and I feel duty bound to act on it given the figures. Many of them are disputed by the Minister's account. Nevertheless, it is clear that 90% of schools have indicated in a recent survey that they have difficulty sourcing a substitute teacher and 82% of them have indicated that it has been more difficult this year than in any previous year. These figures speak for themselves.

However, it must be accepted that the Minister has increased the budget by €25 million, or 25%, this year over last year. It appears that there might be some structural issues in certain areas. There are difficulties in getting substitute teachers in Dublin, in particular. That might be something that could be reviewed in due course because it is a particular pressure point. Indeed, that is why I am coming under pressure in this regard. I would be interested to hear what the solutions might be in that respect in the future. The CPSMA has outlined a number of potential actions for alleviating the substitution issue which it would be more than happy to share with the Minister and his Department. The Minister might be interested in that.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department and I are always in discussion with the various stakeholders. I will examine the survey. I note that it was conducted over an eight week period and suggested that there was a difficulty filling the vacancies that had arisen in the previous eight weeks. We will examine that, get the data and see if a particular issue has arisen here. The difficulty is that where there is a short-term vacancy of only a day or two teaching it is hard to make that an attractive offer to qualified teachers when there are permanent positions available. We have made it easier to get permanent contracts. We have reduced from four to two years the period when one gets a contract of indefinite duration. We are giving better permanency and conditions, increasing the number of full-time permanent positions and increasing the pay. We now pay nearly €36,000 to a graduate straight out of college who is starting in a position.

I can understand that there are difficulties with substitution. We will meet with those involved to see what initiatives might be taken beyond those we have already taken.