Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 36: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will explain the way in which a school principal is expected to guarantee that a person with no teaching qualifications is competent and capable of acting in a teaching capacity in the school as laid out in section 6.2 of circular 31-2011; and his views on whether this provision makes a mockery of the Teaching Council statutory role in assuring the quality of teachers in Irish schools. [19029/11]

Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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Question 45: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the way a school principal is expected to guarantee that a person with no teaching qualifications is competent and capable of acting in a teaching capacity in the school as laid out in section 6.2 of circular 31-2011; and his views that this provision makes a mockery of the Teaching Council statutory role in assuring the quality of teachers in Irish schools. [19030/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos.36 and 45 together.

I am fully committed to ensuring that, to the greatest extent possible, only qualified and registered teachers are employed in recognised schools.

My Department issued Circular 0031/2011 in May this year. It requires schools to prioritise teachers over unregistered persons, appropriately qualified teachers over teachers qualified for different sectors and unemployed teachers over teachers in receipt of a public sector pension. Only where every avenue for sourcing a registered teacher has been exhausted may a school employ an unregistered person until a registered teacher may be located, and this employment may last no longer than 5 school days.

It is important that, where a school does find itself having to employ an unregistered person, it satisfies itself that the person is fit to act in place of a teacher. I see this as simply capturing what a principal must have to consider in these circumstances. Any other approach could be seen as relieving a school of any responsibility in its choice of unregistered person in the limited circumstances where this can arise.