Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá mé thar a bheith sásta go bhfuilimid ag plé an Bille um Chomhairle Mhúinteoireachta (Leasú) 2015 inniu. Is Bille é seo a bhfuilimid a bheag nó a mhór ag tacú leis.

Sinn Féin welcomes the opportunity to discuss the Teaching Council (Amendment) Bill, of which we are broadly supportive. We await the Minister's tabling of further amendments and seek clarification as to why such amendments, if intended, have not yet been tabled.

We agree that there must be a statutory basis for the Teaching Council in vetting registered teachers. The council will then act as a conduit for schools that need to obtain vetting disclosures for teachers they employ. The current system is unwieldy and there appear to be differing figures on how many of the 90,000 teachers currently employed in the Twenty-six Counties are actually vetted. It could be anything up to 40,000 and, as we have heard, it is certainly over 30,000 due to the fact that only newly qualified teachers and post-career break teachers must be vetted. It is agreed that that situation is unacceptable because everyone in our school system should be vetted.

Special needs assistants are not teachers and will not come under this legislation. It will therefore still be the responsibility of the school to attend to that administrative matter. My colleague, Deputy Jonathan O'Brien, has raised this issue previously. He has pointed to the fact that the Department of Education and Skills does not hold information on how many SNAs are vetted or not.

I understand it may not be feasible to require vetting for the likes of an electrical contractor or other workers who come into a school on a temporary basis to fix lighting systems or alarms, or whatever other jobs they may be asked to do over a couple of days. However, SNAs work in quite close proximity to students. This is something that must be looked at and I am not aware that the Minister has addressed the matter since that contribution was made. Deputy O’Brien also raised the matter of offences that were triable on indictment affecting the ability to teach of those convicted of conflict related offences. The Minister replied that the provision within the Bill was concerned only with offences that were related to a person's fitness to teach. The Minister may be confident that this alone is sufficient but I remain unconvinced and would like to see it explicitly outlined within the Bill that conflict related convictions are not included. There are many former political prisoners who will feel the same way and there are certainly those within the political establishment who are anti-peace process and would be quite likely to argue that an indictable offence is an indictable offence regardless of context. I urge the Minister to clarify this.

We have some concerns, which were raised by various Deputies, around the terminology of "fit and proper" in the context of the Bill. These are vague terms and are open to broad interpretation. We currently have a situation where teachers can be sacked for being gay if they are in the wrong school and it is perfectly legal. We do not want inadvertently to create a situation where a teacher cannot be registered because their political activity is not to the liking of the Teaching Council and speaking out about decimated education budgets is not deemed to be proper activity fit for a teacher. The Minister may dismiss this out of hand, but the legislation allows for this vista. It does not do anything to address precariousness in the workplace for teachers, and although we were told that the Ward report would be implemented in September, it has not happened yet.

Ar cheist atá gar do mo chrói féin, múineadh na Gaeilge, sílim go bhfuil gá an caighdeán fágála seachas an caighdeán iontrála atá ag múinteoir le Gaeilge a dheimhniú. Ba chomhair go mbeadh dualgas ar An Chomhairle Mhúinteoireachta deimhniú go bhfuil an múinteoir "fit for purpose" ó thaobh múineadh na Gaeilge chomh maith. Bhí tuairisc againn le déanaí ón príomh chigire a léirigh go raibh 25% de múinteoirí bunscoile agus 33% de múinteoirí Gaeilge iarbhunscoile le cumas lag sa Ghaeilge. B'fhiú breathnú ar sin i gcomhthéacs an Bhille seo.

Tá ceist mhór ann ó thaobh cáilíochtaí múinteoirí le Gaeilge. An féidir linn breathnú ar rud éigin a chur isteach sa Bhille seo gur gá go bhfuil an duine cáilithe le múineadh i scoil Bhéarla, i scoil Gaeilge nó Gaeltachta nó insan dá cheann, mar tá difríocht sa chaighdeán ó thaobh na múinteoirí atá ag múineadh Gaeilge amháin i scoileanna lán Bhéarla, trí mheán na Gaeilge i nGaelscoil nó trí mheán na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht. Sílim go bhfuil ról ag An Chomhairle Múinteoireachta anseo.

We are concerned that the Bill does not address the issues pertaining to bullying of teachers in the workplace. We acknowledge that it can be difficult for a school to get rid of an underperforming teacher who is terrible at their job, but the vast majority of teachers do not fall into that category. Where a teacher is subject to bullying in the workplace, it is more often than not the case that the board of management and principals are a law unto themselves. We would like to see this Bill tightened up but I understand there needs to be some element of flexibility. It was for this reason that Sinn Féin tabled an amendment calling for a review of this Bill two years after its enactment. It would be good practice to do this.

We have more concerns which we will address on Committee Stage. In saying this, we are broadly supportive of the Bill because of our overarching belief in the need to prioritise child protection concerns and standardised vetting, but we would hope that the Minister takes on board the concerns we have raised. Go raibh maith agaibh.