Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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55. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her Department will support the introduction of a Dublin allowance for teachers to help to address the teacher retention crisis in the Dublin area. [16343/24]

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, on her appointment to the Department of Education. Will the Department support the introduction of a Dublin allowance for teachers to help to address the crisis in teacher retention in the Dublin area?

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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While we are offering congratulations, I congratulate the Deputy on the birth of his second daughter, Sadhbh. I wish him and his partner, Nicola, well. As I said to him earlier, he is surrounded by women. He is blessed among women and it will be very good for him. I sincerely wish him well. It is wonderful to be welcoming a new baby girl.

The quality and commitment of Irish teachers is the bedrock of our education system and has been key to unlocking Ireland's potential as a knowledge economy. A range of measures are in place to ensure that teaching remains an attractive profession and that schools are supported in recruiting the staff they need. Pay and workplace reform measures for public servants have been governed by a framework of public service pay agreements for a number of years, with the new agreement in place until June 2026. The value of public pay deals to the Government and the taxpayer is in ensuring pay costs are managed in a sustainable and orderly way and in a climate of industrial peace. By and large, public pay agreements have delivered on these objectives over the past 12 years. The agreements have allowed a programme of pay restoration for public servants, with new-entrant pay being gradually restored over the years. The previous agreement, Building Momentum, provided for increases of 8.5% to 9.5% over the entire agreement, with workers on lower pay receiving higher percentage increases.

The new public sector pay agreement provides for further baseline increases of 9.25% for more than 100,000 staff in the school sector as well as retired staff. In terms of teacher pay specifically, these increases will raise the pay of a teacher on the top point to around €85,000 per annum. The starting pay for a teacher will be approximately €46,000 per annum, which is almost €20,000 higher than would have been achieved in 2011. In addition, there have been other recent measures under Building Momentum to increase pay and allow new-entrant teachers to move up the pay scale more quickly.

The Government is committed to the delivery of quality public services. We will continue to approach public service pay in a balanced way that is reasonable and fair to both public servants and taxpayers. The Government acknowledges that the housing issue and the current price pressures in society present particular challenges and are a source of concern for all public service workers, including staff in the education sector.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for her kind words. It is very much appreciated by my family, to whom education means the world, that the Minister for Education mentioned my daughter on the floor of the House. Her sister Anna is very excited.

On the matter at hand, the INTO has spoken at its recent conference about 2,000 long-term vacancies within the primary school sector, as the Minister knows. It predicted this last November. The reason I keep mentioning the potential of the Dublin allowance is that there has been pay weighting in London since 1920. In fact, in 2002 teachers in London went on strike for increased weighting. What I propose has been in the understanding of the education system in London for over 100 years and we need to have that understanding here as well because far too many schools are understaffed, particularly in Dublin. I went to one such primary school, in the west of the city. It is operating at 45% of its staff capacity. Therefore, we have to find mechanisms to retain and recruit teachers who will stay. It is effectively a housing issue but a Dublin allowance might be part of the solution.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Housing, led by my colleague the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy O'Brien, remains a key priority of the Government. The strategy Housing for All delivers on the programme for Government commitment to step up housing supply and put affordability at the heart of the housing system. A suite of measures, including cost-rental, affordable and social housing, is being provided for and significant progress has been made, but more needs to be done. That is acknowledged. More will be done.

I appreciate the Deputy's bona fides on the Dublin allowance for staff. Whatever is done for one sector within the public service would, in the interest of fairness, have to be done across all sectors. I previously pointed to the fact that the improvements in pay for staff are on a par with, if not greater than, those currently provided for through the London allowance, as the Deputy referred to it. I get the principle of what the Deputy is saying but believe his proposal could have ramifications across the entire public sector. Therefore, it is not as clear-cut as it appears.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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The ramifications are that we have schools that are not being staffed and staffrooms that are struggling to keep schools operational. Circumstances are not the same across the country because housing and childcare in Dublin are much more expensive. Everything in Dublin is much more expensive. The cost of living is much more expensive. As has been recognised in London, such costs have a knock-on effect on the availability of staff to run basic public services. I suggest that teaching is the most important service that we provide to society, bearing in mind children's day-to-day activity and how they view themselves and their cohorts. If we cannot staff schools, it means an absolute crisis. This is an issue in Dublin particularly because of the high cost of living. The issue is that we will have circumstances in which schools will not be staffed and children will not be taught effectively, resulting in the discontinuation of the precious connection between children and their teachers. That will have ramifications in the future. If teachers cannot afford to live here, we and the Government have to address it.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I do not take away from the challenges the Deputy referred to. We have been cognisant of them. The Deputy will appreciate that in the recent budget we announced a €2,000 support bursary for the PME students who will compete in 2024. We also introduced 1,000 posts of responsibility, again to support teachers in their workplace. We provided for free upskilling courses in subjects that present a challenge. We have engaged with student teachers, more than 3,000 of whom have found routes to make themselves available to schools. We have also found pathways forward with retired teachers. There is an increase of more than 49% in the number of retired teachers making themselves available to provide additional supports in schools. We will do more and more in this field. I am not for one minute saying there is no merit to what the Deputy says about additional resources, having regard to the geography. However, the proposal, notwithstanding what the Deputy has said, would validate a cohort living in one area more than another. It would also validate one sector of the public sector more than another. The whole thing would have to be looked at in the round for the public sector.