Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

This is the view of the section of the Department. It is considered that we need these extra legal powers to avoid litigation and dispute. We have endeavoured to have as much consultation as possible with the social partners in regard to this in the area. I stress that it is not an attempt to undermine or take away the discretionary powers of patron bodies and individual schools to hire or to refuse to hire individual staff. We have had one year of operating this and we have had a good experience with all involved. However, the people involved on our side felt it was necessary to have clarification and, indeed, a strengthening of the legislation in this area on behalf of the Minister. Otherwise, if I or the negotiating staff within the Department who conduct the negotiations - it is not the Minister who does the negotiating - could not get the agreement, we could not employ the extra or new teachers. There would be an impasse whereby if a school required teacher capacity, we could not authorise it because the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform would not authorise it. We would not get sanction for that new employment unless we had cleared out the panel, and that is what we need.