Michael Cahill (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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85. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to urgently address the significant barriers in progressing to the Professional Master of Education (PME) program due to the Teaching Council's current lack of recognition of Irish Sign Language as an eligible qualification (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24594/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Teaching Council is the professional standards body for the teaching profession, which promotes and regulates professional standards in teaching. At the outset, I confirm that there are entry routes to primary, post-primary and further education teacher education programmes for persons who are deaf and hard of hearing. Currently there are teachers who are deaf and hard of hearing registered with the Council under its various routes of registration.

In relation to primary, a new programme of ITE, the Bachelor of Education (Irish Sign Language), commenced in 2019 in Dublin City University (DCU) which enables deaf and hard of hearing people who use Irish Sign Language (ISL) to enter primary teaching. This B.Ed. allows ISL to be accepted as an alternative to Irish ensuring increased access and inclusion for all in the classroom.

There are also accredited programmes of Initial Teacher Education available for Post-primary and Further Education teaching. It is the Council’s understanding that all Higher Education Institutions have schemes in place to support students with particular additional needs to access these programmes.

In addition to holding the relevant teacher education qualification, applicants for registration under ‘Route 2 - Post-primary’ must also meet the requirements for at least one post-primary curricular subject. A curricular subject is defined as a subject with a prescribed syllabus approved by the Department of Education and examined by the State Examinations Commission.