Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Jan 2018

Vol. 964 No. 2

Shortage of Teachers: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Thomas Byrne

I move:

That Dáil Éireann, recognising the importance of teachers and valuing the contribution that the profession has made to Irish society —

accepts that:

— a real crisis exists whereby demand for substitute teachers vastly exceeds supply both at primary and second-level schools;

— there are major challenges in Irish second-level schools in securing the right teachers, with the right subject combinations, to ensure that all pupils can study the subjects of their choosing;

— pay inequality has contributed to a teacher recruitment and retention crisis that will continue to have severe repercussions for the school system unless it is urgently tackled;

— during this crisis, hundreds of Irish teachers are working abroad on a temporary basis;

— the report of the Teaching Council entitled ‘Striking the Balance - Teacher Supply in Ireland: Technical Working Group Report’, while completed in December 2015, was not published for some 18 months until the matter was raised a number of times in the Dáil; and

— the Minister for Education and Skills has been slow to address this issue and was mistaken in his view expressed in May 2017, that his Department ‘does not have evidence of a general shortage of primary teachers, including for substitute teachers’, and that his Department was mistaken in the view expressed in January 2018, whereby it stated that ‘there is no overall problem with teacher supply’;

acknowledges that:

— problems of teacher supply and supply of substitutes are widespread across Ireland;

— many unqualified persons are supervising children where no substitute teacher can be found;

— all relevant education partners find extreme difficulties recruiting teachers with Gaeilge, and teachers of foreign languages, and as a result schools are reported to be considering dropping language provision, and that fears have been expressed for the future of our national language;

— teachers of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects are in extremely short supply with numbers training to be such collapsing;

— overall applications to become second-level teachers have dropped precipitously, from almost 3,000 in 2011 to just over 1,000 in 2017, with only 600 applications this year as of 9th January, 2018, with an extended closing date;

— the cost to become a teacher by obtaining a Postgraduate Masters in Education (PME) is increasingly expensive and it can cost up to €15,000 to complete a PME;

— there is no organization of PMEs by the Department whatsoever in terms of subjects and taking up to six years to study to be a second-level teacher is considered unnecessary;

— special schools, special education, children with special educational needs and children in schools serving disadvantaged communities are suffering disproportionately from this crisis;

— the number of teacher retirements is significantly way ahead of Department of Education and Skills forecasts;

— the Minister’s proposal to recruit homemakers on to Springboard courses to enable them to become teachers has not been acted on and neither has any other proposal of the Minister; and

— the education partners have been vocal during this crisis and have come forward with numerous ideas and solutions;

and calls on the Government to:

— agree a roadmap with teaching unions on how full pay equality will be achieved and in conjunction with that organize a recruitment and advertising campaign aimed at bringing home young Irish teachers temporarily working abroad;

— establish substitute supply panels again at primary level;

— consider, on a temporary basis, allowing teachers who job share to substitute during their days off in their own schools;

— further expand, on a temporary basis, the opportunity for teachers on career break to act as substitutes;

— make it easier for retired teachers to act as substitutes in the short-term, but ensure that this in no way interferes with the normal teaching labour market;

— reconsider the need for a second year in PME programmes;

— rapidly expand undergraduate programmes of initial teacher education to qualify people to be second-level teachers;

— ensure that teachers based in Northern Ireland can register to teach in the Republic of Ireland in an efficient, economic and fair way;

— ensure that teachers qualified abroad are facilitated into the Irish education system in a reasonable way;

— expedite the work started following the publication of the 2015 Teaching Council Report; and

— establish a body within the Department of Education and Skills working with education partners tasked with coordinating policy matters concerning teacher supply.

I will be sharing time with Deputies Breathnach, Lawless, Aindrias Moynihan, O'Loughlin and Smyth. This issue has been bubbling away in the education system and teaching profession for several years. The motion states that a real crisis exists whereby substitute teachers at primary level cannot be sourced and, in many cases, schools cannot get the right teachers for the right subjects at second level. This crisis has several causes but the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, has denied it exists. As recently as spring 2017, less than a year ago, the Minister said there was no issue regarding substitute teachers at primary level. The latest mantra from the Department of Education and Skills is that there is currently no overall problem with teacher supply.

I welcome the teachers, principals and union representatives who are present in the Public Gallery. I would have liked for more teachers to be here but those teaching at primary level are either finishing their job or starting the second part of the job, which is preparing for tomorrow's classes, while second level teachers are probably still in class.

I welcome their representatives to the Public Gallery.

This problem has been denied and denied. As a result, action has not been taken. When the Minister was put on the spot about this problem by the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, NAPD, last year, he said he was going to encourage homemakers to take free Springboard courses. That was top-of-the-head and back-of-the-envelope stuff from the Minister because it was not acted upon. I do not believe it was ever a serious proposition. The very fact that it was put forward as an idea in the public media showed how little the Minister thought of this problem. The Fianna Fáil leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, made the accusation this morning that the Minister has been lethargic and inept on this issue. I have already outlined the Minister's slowness in realising that there is a problem. That lack of realisation continues to this day and is reflected in the motion before the House.

The Government does not recognise there is a problem at all on this issue. This lack of recognition is also evident in the suppression of the report Striking the Balance: Teacher Supply in Ireland, which was submitted to the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, in 2015. The report was sat on for 18 months. I raised the matter of the report twice during Priority Questions and wondered where it was. Teachers, unions and a number of former Ministers for Education and Skills all saw this as a problem and asked me to highlight it. The report was finally published last June.

The truth is that we have a system of educating and training teachers that is in a mess. There is undergraduate provision to qualify people as second-level teachers. While that exists, it is currently underdeveloped. The postgraduate masters degree in education has, let us be honest, been a failure. It is in urgent need of a review, as is called for in the motion. The postgraduate masters degree in education for second-level teaching can cost up to €15,000 after one has completed the three or four-year primary degree. It is no surprise that the number of graduates studying for this decreased from 3,000 in 2011 to way fewer than 1,000 this year. The numbers have gone down by nearly 75%. This is a shocking statistic and yet the Minister remains in denial. Let us remember that the implementation of the Minister's plans and policies for the Irish school system - be it in the context of his promoting careers advice under pressure from Deputies this side of the House or promoting subjects such as science, coding, maths and foreign languages - depends on having good, qualified and professional teachers available. The Minister's policies are threatened by the lack of availability of good-quality, educated professionals. The fact that the Minister is in denial is a real problem.

There is a major issue regarding substitute teachers in primary schools. Considering all the training days that teachers are required to do - and days for other purposes when they are outside the school for sickness and so on - the Minister is presiding over a crisis where there are no substitute teachers available to teach those children. The Minister can say it is a problem of success and that all the positions are full. While this is partially correct, it is also the case that the Minister has not looked at some of the initiatives that have been put forward by the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, regarding teacher supply panels. I do not know why they have not been looked at yet.

The Minister is also ignoring the elephant in the room. Perhaps it is not a surprise that he is ignoring this particular elephant. I refer to teachers who are working abroad. Yesterday, the Taoiseach encouraged people to go abroad. I felt like a fool when the Taoiseach said that because I have brought forward this motion, which specifically calls on the Government to engage in a recruitment drive to encourage young professionals to come home to teach in Ireland in order that we might show them how highly we value them as teachers. This is being utterly undermined by the Taoiseach, along with any of the plans the Minister may have boiling away in the back of the Department to encourage people to come home, although we have not seen much evidence of that. It is utterly destroyed by the Taoiseach's suggestion that all is grand, that we do not want these people and that they should make their money abroad and then come home. He is out of touch with reality and what he said badly affects our children.

This is the first time a range of solutions relating to the crisis has been put forward in one motion. I do not claim to be the fount of all knowledge. The fount of all knowledge is the education partners. They put forward these ideas to the Minister, to me and to the Joint Committee on Education and Skills. In this motion, we have distilled some of the ideas we approved of. I am willing to listen to the debates and suggestions by Members of the House to try to put pressure on the Minister to act on this crisis.

Let us consider the foundations of the crisis that is sending teachers abroad and that encourages constituents - such as one I met last week and who is studying chemistry in Dublin City University - to not become teachers. First of all there are costs associated with the postgraduate qualification and then there is the pay scale inequality. This is at the root of this crisis. It is about time that this was admitted. Teachers are saying, in their correspondence with me and in their comments on the public airwaves, that they do not feel valued. They do not feel that the State wants them, values them or wants to pay them properly. They are on a different pay scale. We have rehashed the arguments in this House time and again. It is about time that the Minister became a champion for those teachers. If the Minister took on the rhetoric that I have taken on, publicly and among his Government colleagues in Cabinet, it would have a transformative effect on the perceptions that young teachers have of themselves and of how members of the public regards their career. By refusing to take that step and advocate for pay scale equality the Minister is contributing to the negative impression that young teachers have of themselves and how they feel they are valued by the Government.

As so many of my colleagues who are anxious to speak on this issue, I shall yield time. I will be back, however, and I look forward to listening to the remainder of the debate.

Deputy Fiona O'Loughlin

There is no doubt that there is a recruitment and retention crisis in the education system, despite what the Minister and the Government say. I engage with and receive correspondence from teachers in my constituency regularly regarding the chronic shortage of substitute teachers available in our area. Four days ago, a principal from Robertstown national school emailed me to say that having spent numerous hours of personal time over the weekend making calls and sending texts and emails, no qualified teacher was available. An unqualified teacher supervised the class for two days, after which the principal had to put the learning support teacher into the class for the remainder of the week. This deprived other children of the support to which they are entitled. There are currently no teachers available in Kildare to cover substitution and schools are unable to fill temporary or fixed-term teaching posts.

The Catholic Primary Schools Management Association survey carried out last year shows that 89.69% of schools were experiencing difficulty in sourcing substitute teachers and that there were a significant number of days when children in our schools were not taught by qualified teachers. This time last year, only 30 stand-in teachers were available nationwide to cover absences across 3,300 schools each day. The INTO has said that it would take 800 such substitute teachers to cover the schools in the State.

The Minister for Education and Skills has said that there is no evidence of a teacher shortage. This completely contradicts what public representatives are hearing on the ground. The lack of Irish language teachers risks the future of our national language and the shortage of science, technology, engineering and maths teachers threatens our economic future. Teaching needs to attract the very best graduates. Our children deserve nothing less. The shocking fact that just six physics teachers are expected to graduate in the next two years should be a wake-up call for the Minister and his Department. Shortages of teachers in Irish, home economics and European languages result in the use of out of field teachers for these subjects. Surely this is unacceptable for our education system. The Minister describes these as pinch points and I believe this drastically underestimates the gravity of the situation. The collapse in the numbers applying for teacher training courses, a drop of more than 60% between 2011 and 2017, is highly concerning. Only 600 individuals have so far applied to complete the two-year professional masters degree in education. The expense of this course is most certainly a barrier that prevents people from applying.

The cost of €11,000 is unaffordable for most students who have finished their primary degree and, without a shadow of a doubt, this is not unrelated to the inequity in pay levels and our two-tier system.

To address the crisis, full pay equality needs to be achieved, middle management needs to be restored and a recruitment and advertising campaign aimed at bringing home young teachers who are working abroad needs to be put in place. At Christmas, I met two such teachers who had come home to get married. They were working in Dubai to get a down payment together to buy a house. We need to re-establish substitute supply panels at primary level. We also need to establish a body to work with education partners in co-ordinating policy matters concerning teacher supply.

We must invest in our teachers and their professionalism and develop a long-term plan to ensure that all of our schools and children have the quality teaching professionals they need. The quality of our education system and our teachers has been widely acknowledged and a recent international review concluded that this rich resource should be highly valued. Recruitment and retention of quality teachers in our schools should be a key policy concern for all of us. The added workload and worry for principals such as the principal of Robertstown in Kildare whom I mentioned earlier and for parents, is simply unfair and needs to be addressed without delay.

Deputy Declan Breathnach

The Minister knows that to fail to plan is to plan to fail. On 8 November 2017, I asked a question about the programme for Government which refers to education as the key to giving every child an equal opportunity in life. I stated, "Despite the commitment in the budget to reduce teacher-pupil ratios and provide new teachers, schools are experiencing significant difficulties sourcing substitute cover, with substitute teachers not available within 80 km of many schools." On the increase in the number of teachers and various developments in teaching, the Taoiseach replied:

We are not having a significant difficulty hiring teachers. However, it may be that because we are hiring teachers and so many of them are securing permanent jobs, fewer teachers are available to do substitution.

I spent 35 years teaching at primary level and 23 of those as teaching principal. Last week I contacted every school in my constituency, both primary and secondary, for their views. I will not elaborate more than anyone else but, without being repetitive in order to ensure others have their speaking time, the key issues were pay inequality and substitute teachers, which was the second most complained about issue. I have been told by many of those schools that, in their experience, substitutes are extremely hard to find. One of the key points being made is that lots of schools were relying on B.Ed students because they are off at the moment. This crisis will continue to grow unless the Minister deals with it.

I have previously referred to the cost of living. Living in cities and commuting 80 km to do substitute work does not pay. Something needs to be done about the system for the return of retired teachers to fill the gaps. Others have referred to the shortage of teachers in certain subject areas and gluts in others. Finally, it would be remiss of me not to say that it is time the moneys given to primary schools were the same given to secondary and other schools in capitation payments. In terms of funding, the primary sector is on the back foot.

Deputy James Lawless

I acknowledge the presence of teaching and union representatives in the Gallery. I commend my colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne, for tabling the motion. It is currently an important area in education. As party science spokesperson, I will focus my comments on STEM. The gap in STEM subjects and the number of STEM teachers at second level has been well documented in any number of reports dating back to the 1990s, the most recent one being a report from November 2016. The Minister has also acknowledged it in recent times.

I attended the conference of the Irish Science Teachers Association in Maynooth approximately six months ago where I again heard a call for greater emphasis on STEM subjects, a greater input into STEM teaching and a greater number of STEM graduates to enter the system. I also met representatives of the Institute of Physics who had similar concerns. The issue is manifesting in a scenario where many science subjects are being taught by teachers whose primary degree may not have been in that particular science subject. For instance, a lot of biology teachers may be teaching physics or chemistry, which some refer to as the physical sciences. This is not ideal for a number of reasons. We also see gender imbalance. We see less of the physical sciences being taught in some girls-only schools. In some schools, these subjects are not even being offered. A lot of this links back to the difficulty we have in retaining or attracting STEM graduates into the profession at present and, despite numerous reports, the lack of action from Government on it.

The Minister has alluded to some schemes that may be possible. There was talk over Christmas about taking people from industry. I do not have a difficulty with that. However, an accommodation will have to be reached with the unions on how someone could enter the profession mid-stream. It does seem to make sense, however, that someone working in industry or in a professional capacity outside the classroom could be retrained. I might bring something to bear in that manner. Continuing professional development for teachers in the subject area is another possibility to enable people's skills in their subject choice to remain honed.

Many Irish graduates and teachers are now travelling abroad. They may be working as interpreters in European Union positions, etc. As a result of the course change, a difficulty is expected to arise soon in the teaching of home economics.

There may be an opportunity to collaborate in a pilot initiative involving some of the teachers in institutes of technology who have Teaching Council numbers and would be qualified to teach in secondary schools. I believe that video-link technology is making that available in some schools already. These ideas need to be explored urgently to address the gap.

I yield to my colleague, Deputy Aindrias Moynihan.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Táim chun díriú ar an ngéarchéim mar a bhraitear é sna Gaelscoileanna agus sna scoileanna Gaeltachta. Tá sé soiléir go bhfuil géarchéim ann agus is iad na daltaí atá thíos leis nuair nach bhfuil na múinteoirí ar fáil. Ní bheidh ach an t-aon deis amháin acu i gcomhair bunscolaíochta agus meánscolaíochta agus tá sé ag sleamhnú uathu toisc an géarchéim. Go rialta, bíonn ar scoileanna post a fhógairt thart ar trí huaire sara bhfaigheann siad aon iarrthóir cáilithe nó b'fhéidir sara bhfaigheann siad aon iarrthóir in aon chor. Ní rud eisceachtúil é seo agus is thar na hábhair éagsúla atá sé. Tá an deacracht agus an géarchéim sin ann le tamall. Tá sé curtha in iúl don Roinn agus do na húdaráis éagsúla ach is amhlaidh gur in olcas atá rudaí ag dul.

Tá laghdú ar an líon daoine atá ag tabhairt faoi na cúrsaí. Tuigim go bhfuil sé laghdaithe thart ar 60% sna hollscoileanna idir 2011 agus 2017. Ag an am céanna, tá líon na ndaltaí ag fás. Mar shampla, tá a fhios againn go bhfuil dream mór sa tríú rang anois agus go mbeidh an dream seo sna meánscoileanna sara bhfad.

Tá daoine ag dul thar lear chun breis airgid a thuilleamh. Bhí liúntas ann do mhúinteoirí a bhí ag múineadh trí Ghaolainn agus sa Ghaeltacht. Caithfear a leithéid a thabhairt ar ais arís i dtreo is go mbeimid ábalta daoine a mhealladh chuig na scoileanna Gaeltachta agus Gaelscoileanna.

Minister for Education and Skills (Deputy Richard Bruton)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following:

“recognises the vital role that the teaching profession plays in Irish society;

welcomes this Government’s ongoing commitment to providing for an adequate supply of teachers to meet the needs of schools;

notes that:

— as part of the Government’s plan to make the Irish education and training service the best in Europe by 2026, the Government has prioritized investment in education with total investment in education increasing by €1 billion in the last two years;

— the additional investment which the government is making in education has allowed 5,000 additional teachers to be successfully recruited in the past two years, with the total number of teachers increasing from 61,380 in 2015/2016 to 66,454 in 2017/2018;

— the total number of teachers increased from 57,549 in 2012/2013 to 66,454 in 2017/2018 with the creation of over 8,900 new teaching positions;

— the Department of Education and Skills are now creating more new teaching positions than at any other period in the history of the State;

— in the last five years the number of graduates from initial teacher education programmes has remained constant with over 8,000 primary school teachers graduating from initial teacher education, and over 7,800 second-level teachers;

— an estimated 1,870 primary teachers and 1,523 post-primary teachers will graduate from initial teacher education programmes in 2018, which is in line with graduate levels in recent years;

— differential pay scales were introduced by the then Government in 2010, in response to the financial crisis;

— the Government is committed to achieving the right balance between addressing the legitimate expectations of public service workers for increases in their pay, while ensuring that the Government continues to exercise a prudent approach to the overall management of our public finances;

— the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform entered into an agreement with the teaching unions which resulted in newly qualified teachers receiving pay increases of 15-22 per cent, the second moiety of which was paid on 1st January, 2018, and that the starting pay for a newly qualified teacher straight out of college is now €35,958; and

— under the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020 (the Agreement), the starting salary for a teacher straight out of college will be over €37,600 from October 2020;

recognises that the teacher unions have outstanding pay demands that this agreement does not meet in full - however it does represent significant progress, and does not close the door to the trade union movement seeking to advance the issue further;

further notes:

— the commitment in the new pay agreement to consider the issue of newly qualified pay within 12 months of the commencement of the Agreement and the commitment in the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017 to provide a report to the Oireachtas on this issue in March 2018, which will provide detailed cost estimates for pay restoration;

— that the equalisation of pay scales would mean that a newly qualified second-level teacher straight out of college would have a starting salary of €43,900 from October 2020, and that a primary school teacher straight out of college would have a starting salary of €41,500;

— that the full year cost of new entrant pay equalisation in the education and training sector would be in the order of €130 million and would be over €200m across the public service;

— that if the Department of Education and Skills spent €130m more in pay in 2018 it would mean that there would be less funding available to hire more new teachers, to hire new special needs assistants (SNAs), to invest in tackling educational disadvantage or to promote curriculum reform;

— the vital role that leadership plays in schools, and recognises the 2,600 extra promotional opportunities created in schools in the last year;

— that the number of teachers retiring from the profession has remained constant in the last three years, and that a similar number of retirements are expected in 2018 as in 2017;

— that the creation of over 1,000 net new teaching positions each year in primary schools in the last number of years have provided strong employment opportunities for primary school teachers graduating from initial teacher education programmes, and that as a result, some schools have reported a difficulty in hiring substitute teachers; and

— that, notwithstanding the fact that some 2,850 extra second-level teachers have been recruited in the last two years, that some second-level schools have reported some difficulties in recruiting teachers in certain subject areas;

acknowledges that the Minister for Education and Skills has taken a number of steps already to enhance the availability of retired teachers and teachers on career break for substitution purposes;

notes that the Minister for Education and Skills has received and considered the advice of the Teaching Council;

acknowledges that the Minister is considering a range of new policy interventions to deal with teacher supply and substitution issues in schools, and that a programme of action will be announced shortly; and

welcomes the undertaking of the Minister to consult and engage with partners in advancing initiatives.

I welcome this debate. However, it is important that we have a balanced debate on the issue of teaching supply and the trends in provision for teaching. It has been a major priority of mine to win additional resources in order that we can set as an ambition that by 2026, we would have the best education and training service in Europe. We have been rolling out a substantial investment both in teaching and in further and higher education - it is €1 billion extra in all.

I have provided additional resources to employ 5,000 additional teachers in just the past two years, which is a huge ramp-up in the pace of recruitment into the teaching profession. I have successfully filled that. That is 5,000 net posts. As there are retirements, the gross figure is that well over 7,000 people have been recruited into strong, permanent provisions in the education sector.

That has included restoring guidance counselling, reducing class size, providing for the roll-out of the junior cycle and many other very significant investments in the quality of our education system and supporting the teaching profession in delivering excellence. I have also taken other measures to substantially increase the attractiveness of the teaching profession. The Deputies opposite forget that it was me who negotiated, with my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the restoration of 75% of the gap created in 2010 when entrant pay to the teaching profession was cut by the then Government. That was substantial progress on this issue. I recognise, as others have done, that the teachers' union continues to want to pursue this issue. The most recent pay agreement provided for just such a process and that started virtually immediately after the signing of the agreement. All teachers' unions are engaged in that process. That is a sign of the Government's good faith in this respect.

I have also increased the attractiveness of the teaching profession by providing for 3,000 additional promotion opportunities, which are very significant. I have been around the various conferences and met very young teachers who are taking leadership posts within schools as a result of the opening up of those positions. One in three posts within the teaching profession will be a promoted post. These are significant improvements. I have made it easier also to get a contract of indefinite duration because teachers were finding it hard to get permanent contracts and I negotiated improvements on that front.

It is important that while we consider this issue, we recognise very significant investment is being made in improved teacher supply and providing for priority areas where young people need support, be it in well-being, new systems of assessment, new subjects and so on. Overall, the graduation level of young people entering the teaching profession is stable. There are almost 3,500 graduates from the colleges. That number has been stable over recent years. The number of retirements has also been stable, if not falling, in recent times. They are in line with the Department's forecast.

Deputy Thomas Byrne

No, they are not.

Deputy Richard Bruton

Indeed they are. I can provide the Deputy with the data if he is interested.

Deputy Thomas Byrne

We had that discussion during the Estimates.

Deputy Richard Bruton

In addition, as he probably saw, the recent graduate survey by the Higher Education Authority found that 73% of graduate teachers are being placed in jobs in Ireland. That is a substantial increase over the past few years. More young graduates are getting jobs in Ireland and the numbers emigrating are falling. Significant numbers are studying science, which is a very important area for the future.

I assure the House that I am working to make sure that we deal with the areas where there are difficulties in teacher supply. I recognise that this year it is becoming more difficult than it was last year to, for example, fill substitute positions. Last year, I increased the number of days that persons on career breaks could work from 40 to 90 in the case of primary school teachers and for secondary teachers from 150 hours to 300 hours. I am in discussions with the Teaching Council of Ireland and the various stakeholders on further measures we can take in respect of difficulties with substitution.

I also have real ambitions, as Deputy Byrne mentioned, to improve our performance in areas of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, STEM, foreign languages, Irish and other subjects where there are pinch points, such as home economics and so on. I have moved to take action in these areas. I increased the provision for those entering home economics, introduced a Gaeltacht policy specifically for the development of excellence in the Irish language in the Gaeltacht, provided for additional resources in the National University of Ireland, Galway, NUIG, to see that additional teachers would be educated and to upgrade and support the teaching of Irish in schools that commit to an immersion approach. These are really important elements.

In the depths of the recession, there was a very conscious policy to discourage the giving of substitute hours to people retiring from teaching. That position has changed and we now recognise that people who retire from teaching can be a very valuable resource for providing substitution. More than 60% of those who retire from teaching retire before the age of 60. Many of them are available to deal with some of the pressure points that emerge in providing substitution. There is scope for seeing more development in those areas.

I am in no way complacent about our needs in this area. We faced a very significant bulge in the primary school population and that is moving to second level. We are planning for the increased number of teachers we will need in the second level system to respond to the growing numbers over the coming years. We also need to recognise that the system, and I think Deputy Byrne adverted to this, that has been in place for many years for admission to teacher education has been pretty blind to the subject areas of need. That was not a satisfactory approach and we need to be more conscious of the subject areas of need in planning provision for student places with the institutes of higher education.

Several Deputies referred to the fall off in applications for the master's degree. They rightly recognised that part of this is because some years ago, on foot of work by the inspectorate, it was recognised that the one year master's, the higher diploma, H. Dip., as it was then, did not provide sufficient pedagogical instruction or learning for young people to go into the classroom. That was extended. I would be very slow to reconsider a decision that was made some time ago on grounds of teaching quality. I recognise that there is a cost element and that has definitely contributed. However, numbers accessing all the other routes into education, other than the master's in primary education, PME, at second level have been very robust.

This is an important debate and I recognise the importance of responding and making sure we deal with these needs. I will be announcing a comprehensive set of measures soon, following consultation with relevant partners in the area. I thank the Deputy for bringing the matter to the House. I was disappointed that he did not recognise in his motion any of the progress we have been making in this field but that is politics. I assure the House that I will be working not only to sustain the progress I have made in the past two years, but to identify areas where we need to do better, particularly in our ambitions for STEM, foreign languages, the Irish language and many other areas where we have genuine national ambitions.

Deputy Kathleen Funchion

We support this motion and I thank Deputy Byrne for bringing it forward. It is not rocket science to know that teacher shortages are caused by pay inequality. People who qualify as teachers now, having worked hard and probably having taken out a loan, will be on lower pay than those they work beside.

On top of that he or she is not going to be able to afford housing, either mortgages or rents, at current prices. The option of going abroad is so attractive to graduates and that is why they are doing it. Unless we address the issue of pay and equality we are quite simply not going to be able to address the issue of teacher shortages. It is really coming to a crisis point. It has implications across the sector, in both primary and post-primary schools. Schools are forced to advertise and re-advertise positions and very small numbers are applying for certain posts.

My biggest concern in all of this is the children, the students. Substitute teachers are doing their best when filling in for other teachers, but they may not have the qualifications. A maths teacher might be filling in for an English teacher, or vice versa. That is not adequate and it is not fair that we are asking our students to do their best in their exams but are not providing them with proper teaching. In primary schools if a teacher is absent there are often combined classes where two or three classes are put together. How is any student supposed to learn in that situation? They will not; it is that simple. This is particularly true for anyone who is vulnerable in any way or who has an additional learning need or difficulty. That is completely unfair on our students and our children and it is not good enough. We need to ensure that all of our teachers are qualified and trained to the highest standards in the subjects they are teaching. I simply do not believe, particularly as a parent, that we should be sending our children to school in situations where substitute teachers cannot finish a curriculum. It is not their fault. That is the situation they are faced with.

The Teaching Council technical working group carried out a report in December 2015 entitled Striking the Balance - Teacher Supply in Ireland. It was submitted in early 2016, but it was only published last June. This report makes a number of recommendations aimed at tackling the current teacher shortage. The Minister must consider this report and listen to what the various management bodies, the teachers unions and school principals are saying about this. The issue is not going to resolve itself. We must acknowledge that there is an issue and that there is a difficulty.

We must look at the pay inequality as a first step towards addressing the shortages and the inadequacy of the substitute teachers. This all has a knock-on effect on our next generation and potentially on the mental health of young people and of our teachers. A number of teachers in my constituency, Carlow-Kilkenny, have come to me and said that they are really struggling to make rent. Those who are planning a marriage or planning to buy a house simply cannot do it unless they are fortunate enough to have some sort of help or savings. The reality for most student teachers leaving third level is that they do not have savings. Newly qualified teachers are doing an excellent job and are bringing a whole new dynamic to the classroom. They are very aware of mindfulness and the emotional well-being of the children. That is brilliant, but they are not getting the support they need and we are going to lose them to other countries where they will get the respect and the pay they deserve. This is going to have a negative effect on our children and how they progress in school and ultimately whether they have a chance to go on to third level education.

If a substitute teacher is not qualified in a particular subject they are teaching, a student in that class may be able to afford to get grinds. That is fine for some students, but others cannot afford to do so and they will be left behind. We are widening the educational inequality gap rather than actually trying to bridge it. We are creating problems for ourselves down the line and I really believe that pay inequality is the big factor in all of this. I ask the Minister consider the report and address the issue seriously. He has highlighted some improvements that have been made, but we really are at crisis point. We are going to get to the stage where kids will be going into schools and there simply will not be any teachers there to teach them. We cannot expect those students to go on and do exams and to progress well in their own lives if we are not going to give them the tools they require at the beginning.

Deputy Carol Nolan

Gabhaim mo bhuíochas do Theachta Byrne as ucht an rúin seo a chur os ár gcomhair mar tá sé fíor-thábhachtach. Caithfimid an fhadhb seo a fhuascailt chomh luath agus is féidir. As a former teacher who spent 12 years in the profession, including three as an acting principal, I want to point out that this has been an issue for some time. I remember being in a school in Trumra in County Laois in 2012, a rural school, and having difficulty with sourcing substitute teachers at that time. It has been a problem for some time, but it certainly is becoming worse. It is impacting greatly on the teaching profession, which is being undervalued and is not being given the respect it deserves. Morale is low among teachers, as has been pointed out by several trade unions, including the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO, the Teachers' Union of Ireland, TUI, and the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, ASTI, for some time now. We teachers have been saying it ourselves for some time. It needs to be addressed. Enrolments are increasing and teachers are retiring and our young teachers are going abroad, as Deputy Funchion pointed out. Why should they stay here and be disrespected? They are doing the very same work as other teachers working alongside them but are getting paid less. It comes down to having respect and giving people fair play. In order to resolve this we must look at the pay issue. A commitment must be made.

We know there is dissatisfaction. The facts are there. CAO points have dropped significantly in 2017, with a small reduction in applications for primary teaching courses and a marked reduction in secondary teaching courses. The most dramatic drops in applications were seen in specialist courses such as home economics. The situation for secondary school teachers is absolutely appalling, with the casualisation of work. Secondary school teachers who have spent years training and see the job as a vocation rather than a career are being treated in an appalling manner. They are expected to work four hours a week and they are not given any fair play in terms of contracts. That needs to change.

The Minister is aware of teacher shortages and that they are particularly severe in specialist education, including in maths, science and languages, as well as in locations with higher costs of living, such as Dublin. While geography plays a role, socio-economically disadvantaged urban and rural schools experience the greatest shortages. I spent time as a principal, and I commend principals from around the State for the work they do and indeed the teachers who teach alongside them. An extra burden is put on principals, which is unfair. It must be resolved as soon as possible. It affects pupils. We have to think of our children and give them the best opportunities possible. There are fantastic, high calibre teachers out there. There still are, and we are fortunate to still have some. Many of them are gone, however. We need to bring in incentives - pay equality would be a good start - in order to entice them to come back.

Whilse some of the current conditions are a legacy of the increased demand for teachers during the Celtic tiger years when schools adopted lower teacher-pupil ratio policies, the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, now claims that the recently strengthened economy is again to blame for teacher shortages. It is not. The teaching profession has always been highly regarded. Teacher unions insist that the two-tier pay gap is causing the crisis in filling short absences. That is absolutely correct. I have heard that from teachers myself. I worked alongside young teachers and tried to encourage them. They did their best, but their morale was low and it still is.

A snapshot of the current crisis can be gleaned clearly from a recent survey which was carried out by the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association, CPSMA, which says that its survey of more than 800 principals provides clear and compelling evidence of a nationwide shortage. It is beyond belief that the Department of Education and Skills stated that it believes there is no issue with recruiting extra teachers. There is an issue. One data set from the CPSMA survey indicated that more than 80% of respondents claimed they were finding it harder to recruit substitute teachers this year compared with last year, indicating that this shortage is getting worse. According to a recent report by the Irish Primary Principals Network, IPPN, up to 36% of schools were unable to source a substitute teacher on ten or more occasions since September last year.

The fact is that out of 15,500 days of teacher absences between 1 September and 31 October 2017, schools had been unable to replace teachers for almost 4,000 of those days. It was further revealed that almost 5,000 days were covered by non-registered and non-qualified teachers. That is very unfair to our pupils. They are ill-prepared for examinations, and we need to resolve this problem quickly. The Gaelscoileanna are having particular difficulties in that special education teachers are being redeployed to supervise mainstream classes. I am not alone in believing that these shortages will, in time, have a detrimental effect on the quality of education being provided to pupils, particularly to those with special educational needs.

I will conclude on the following point. If this teacher shortage problem is not urgently addressed, we will not be able to build the best education system in Europe, to which the Minister has aspired. One way of addressing this crisis is to simply end inequality in terms of teachers' pay. The Minister should give a commitment to equal pay for equal work. Bad policy always reaps negative consequences and this current teacher shortage is a prime example of that bad policy.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

I spoke to a teacher on Friday who told me that in the past six years she has lost approximately €30,000 of her salary, and she expects to lose over €107,000 of her salary over her full career. Equal pay for equal work is necessary now. That is a key component of the problem in the area.

A shortage of teachers is most keenly felt in the Irish medium and Gaeltacht schools, and it is reaching epic proportions. There is a fear that the Government is deliberately neglecting the problem so that the status of Irish will erode to the point that the Department will claim it had no choice but to rid the school system of mandatory Irish. We know that for a long time it has been an ambition of Fine Gael to do that. In the 2012 election, the then Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, proposed that Irish would no longer be a mandatory subject and only changed his view on that due to the public outcry at the time. It appears to many now that Fine Gael is deliberately neglecting provisions for the Irish language to the point where it becomes impossible to recruit teachers, and that will present a problem for compulsory Irish. This is not just my view. It is echoed by leading figures in the Irish language bodies. Muireann Ní Mhóráin of An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta, COGG, has said that the future of Irish language education is in jeopardy if there is not a sufficient supply of fully qualified teachers.

We have heard of the major difficulties in recruiting teachers being experienced by mainstream schools. Approximately 90% of 2,800 schools surveyed stated they had problems recruiting teachers and substitute teachers, but that problem is far more serious in Gaeltacht schools and in Gaelscoileanna, with approximately 94% to 96% of those schools saying they have difficulties. All but two schools surveyed said that they could not get a substitute teacher with the necessary qualification in Irish. I spoke to someone in one school who told me they had a teacher who said "Tar anseo" to a pupil. The pupil went over to the teacher but the teacher said, "No, 'tar anseo' means go in the other direction'". That is the difficulty some of these Gaelscoileanna are having recruiting teachers with the necessary Irish.

What is the Department looking to do to fix this problem? Before Christmas, I put a question to the Department which told me it had no plans currently for the provision of Irish language education in Gaelscoileanna outside the Gaeltacht and it had no plans for one in the future. Currently, 23% of parents seek Gaelscoil education for their children. Only 5% of parents get that, and the Department has no plans to allow for a transition of English language schools into the Gaelscoil sector. That is compulsory English. The policy on the Gaeltacht education, thankfully, has arrived, about 50 years after it was called for by the cearta sibhialta na Gaeltachta group, but it will encounter huge obstacles in terms of progress due to the difficulties surrounding the recruitment of teachers.

There is apprehension on the part of schools about getting teachers to which they are entitled. In a scoil in Corca Dhuibhne, Scoil Naomh Eirc, parents are now paying for a teacher out of their own pockets. There is a need for a comprehensive plan for Irish medium education, both inside and outside the Gaeltacht, because they are all dependent on each other. I implore the Minister to focus on this aspect of supply as well because it is doing major damage to those families who simply seek the right to raise their children in Irish.

Deputy Joan Burton

On behalf of the Labour Party, I wish to support and welcome this motion. I have read the Minister's reply and I am very disappointed. In his previous post, he was very fond of talking about the disruptive effects, in a positive way, of change. I and others have been drawing this problem of substitute teachers to the attention of the Minister for the past year and a half. I have correspondence here from around Ireland that I can give to him about schools that have specific problems, whether it is in Kilkenny, Dublin or the west, all of which are experiencing the same difficulty. Less well-off schools are experiencing more of a difficulty, perhaps because they do not have the network of retired teachers living in their area who may be available to do some substitution. This problem is a nightmare for many working principals who find they have to reallocate resource teachers to cover unexpected absences from the teaching staff.

There is a fundamental issue, and it cuts to the Minister's approach. Can he assure us that he does not have a model for Irish education, and for teachers in particular, which essentially makes large groups of them part of the gig economy because at the back of all of this is the fact that we have a growing young population, and we had an enormous school building programme under the previous Government which now continues? Those schools are full. They are located throughout Dublin and the counties, from Meath down to the south east where there is an enormous increase in the population. We had debates here about the need to build more houses so it follows, as night follows day, that we as a country, and the Government in particular, need to rethink our approach to the way we make provision for an adequate supply of teachers and how, having achieved very high levels of recognition in the various tests run internationally relating to the achievements of Irish pupils, we can continue to build on that.

Entire forests have disappeared to provide reports that allow us to speak about the necessity of STEM subjects, but how do we do STEM in a school where one or more teachers suddenly is missing? In Dublin West, many primary schools have 750 to 1,000 pupils and there are even more students than that in the secondary schools, particularly the newer, very successful ones. I have an endless supply of paper from the Minister telling me what he is not doing, so let us consider teachers' conditions and recruitment. We accept the arguments he has put forward about the additional recruitment of teachers in his amendment to the motion, but that was done by the previous Government in a situation where all recruitment had stopped around 2010 and where reductions in wages for entrants had started around that time.

The Minister has a couple of jobs to do if he is not to develop a gig economy atmosphere in staff rooms. I do not believe he wants that, but I believe he has not thought about it. We need to see a proper restoration and agreement with the teachers' unions about entrants' pay. The Minister has to address the issue of the extraordinarily high fees being charged for the postgraduate qualifications that now seem to be a standard requirement of teaching.

It should be borne in mind that notwithstanding the Minister's initiative, postgraduate fees of €5,000 a year for two years are beyond the reach of a lot of kids from ordinary backgrounds with low or modest family incomes. A lot of ordinary families work but do not have that kind of fee money to spend. While the Minister's initiative to address that is welcome, it is not enough. He must recognise and acknowledge that.

The Minister must reach an agreement with the teachers' unions and he must deliver on his statement that he would open through Springboard and other avenues possibilities for people interested in taking up teaching a little later in life, perhaps in their 30s. The Minister must make it much more accessible to them. Make no mistake about it, if we want to continue to attract world-class companies to Ireland, it will depend on our ability to attract well-trained teachers who are remunerated at a rate above the living wage in order that they can buy homes and establish families or pay the exorbitant rents the Government has overseen. We must return to the teaching profession respect and admiration for its professionalism and dedication to students. In my constituency, approximately 30% of students come from backgrounds which are not exclusively ethnic Irish. In every single school, however, the unwritten and unspoken motto has been that every child is welcome no matter what his or her background. That is a core achievement of this generation of teachers, in particular those who have been teaching in places like Dublin West for 20 years and they do not get enough recognition for it. There are many young people who are interested in taking up teaching, but there are barriers and inhibitors to them doing so. Chief among them is the message the Minister has sent. Relatively speaking, the sun is shining on the Irish economy and now is the time to go out and fix the roof to provide secure employment for the current and next generation of teachers to allow them to take pride in their profession.

The Minister has to get to grips with this. I have raised this with him as recently as just before Christmas but I have got the same answer on many occasions. I will read to him just one of the notes a principal teacher has sent me. In one of the local schools there was a lack of a substitute teacher in the case of a bereavement with the result that a resource teacher had to take a junior infants class for the week with a knock-on effect on resource hours. Teaching is very planned nowadays and people work at length on their educational programmes for lesson periods. Resource support is part of the week and the life of children who need it. The Minister is undermining the core efficiency, attractiveness and success of our primary school education system. I fully support the Minister on his desire to expand STEM and modern languages but it is not possible to do it when no substitution is available and we cannot attract really good new entrants to the profession unless the Government addresses the core issue of entrant salaries.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

I wish to share time with Deputy Bríd Smith.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

I welcome representatives of teaching unions who are in the Public Gallery. This is one of the longest motions I have seen in a while from the Opposition, as is the Government's proposed amendment. There are 11 points and a lot of suggestions in the proposers' motion. By the way, the proposers are the people who introduced the two-tier pay system in the first place. It is not a mystery because if pay restoration is the buzzword, we do not need the other suggestions, as well as getting rid of the two-year course for teacher training, which was introduced into the process in the past couple of years by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. The cost of that course makes it prohibitive, meaning that if one has to study up to six years to be a teacher, one might as well be a doctor and get paid twice as much.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach made an interesting statement when he was talking about his new unaffordable housing initiative. He outlined ways people could get a deposit for a house, one of which was the bank of mammy and daddy, if they happened to be as privileged as some of those in Fine Gael who got that or they could go abroad and work. It seems that teachers took that message on board a long time ago, which is the root of the problem. The INTO made the point that €50,000 is lost by a primary teacher, which is the equivalent of a hefty deposit for a house. The ASTI points out that earnings over the span of a teaching career will be €70,000 to €100,000 less. It is not a mystery that young graduates do not stay in this country to be exploited and placed on part-time or if-and-when contracts as they are needed, on top of which they must pay rents and mortgage costs. Unless these issues are addressed, we will see the continuation of shortages.

The Government has attempted to minimise the scale of the problem. In its amendment, it says that the rate of graduates has been constant. The population has increased, however, and it is clear that people are emigrating. Primary school managers say 90% of schools have difficulties finding substitutes. It is fine to point to Gaelscoileanna but this is across the board. One in three substitutes is not qualified or registered. Parents should know that their children are being crammed into overcrowded classes if a teacher is sick or away. They should know that in secondary schools, unqualified teachers are teaching their children in exam years and that they have a lot of free classes. Learning support, of course, has been gutted to take teachers out for substitution. Again, the weakest and most vulnerable pay the price. The Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools reports difficulties finding modern language teachers, Irish teachers and science teachers. It is virtually impossible, according to the Joint Managerial Body, JMB, to obtain an effective physics or French teacher. That is because a person with science or maths can go into industry or go abroad and earn a hell of a lot more.

The motion mentions everything except the fact that pay and qualification allowances have been slashed while there are no permanent jobs for teachers who have spent five and six years studying. It is very hard to take this from Fianna Fáil, which introduced the bailout and austerity programme in the first place wherein public sector workers in particular were pinpointed as the cause of the problem when of course it was the private sector, banking, the construction industry and so on. It is very hard to listen also to the Labour Party which was in government right through this pay inequality, which has been raised as an issue not just in the last year and a half but for years. The former Tánaiste has only raised it in the past year and a half but the teaching profession has been raising it for a long time. The pay of teachers and all public sector workers must be restored. The money is there. Apple is just one classic example. If corporations were made to pay more tax, there would be no need for public sector workers and young graduates to pay the price.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Last November, the three teacher unions, namely, the INTO, TUI and ASTI, made a detailed submission to the Public Service Pay Commission on the emerging crisis in teaching.

There has been a sharp fall in the number of applications to teacher education courses, an increase in emigration among recently qualified teachers and difficulties in filling posts and employing substitute teachers. The submission to which I refer outlined how more than 3,500 persons with no qualifications worked in primary classrooms for 32,000 substitute days in 2016. No substitutes were claimed by schools for nearly 27,000 days and the situation has deteriorated since that submission was made in late 2017. The INTO president, John Boyle, said one of the consequences of pay inequality is serious teacher shortages here, while Irish teachers are employed abroad. He said in schools here "the erosion of young teachers' morale and the growth of discontent are real life impacts of indefensible, unjust and discriminatory pay rates". This morning, I received an email from a primary school teacher in St. Gabriel's in Ballyfermot complaining about this matter. It states:

Those who began teaching after February 2012 will earn over €100,000 less over a 40-year career than a teacher who began prior to 2011. To date a teacher who went to the profession in 2012 has lost out almost €30,000 ... Singling out new teachers is unfair, unjustified and increasingly unacceptable in a rapidly growing economy.

This should not be news to the Minister and yet in his amendment to the Fianna Fáil motion, he seems to be blinkered and in denial that this is actually happening. I printed off four or five articles from various newspapers, including The Irish Times and other broadsheets, which alert society to the chronic shortage of teachers, to the crisis in substitution and to the really dramatic fall in the numbers of people applying for those posts. In his amendment to the Fianna Fáil motion, the Minister began by recognising the vital role teachers play in Irish society. None of us would disagree with that. He said the Department of Education and Skills is now creating more new teacher posts than at any other period in the history of the State. My goodness, we must have had a really sorry history. The Minister is not acknowledging the reality of the situation. That is what Fianna Fáil's motion is attempting to do, albeit late in the day from the party that helped to introduce the FEMPI legislation. It is trying to get rid of it but the real attempt to get rid of FEMPI was made by the ASTI two years ago when it voted for strike action against pay inequality and led a brilliant campaign across the country for equal pay for equal work. Its name was dirt in the House. I do not know if there was another party apart from us who actually supported 100% the action it was willing to take. Deputy Coppinger is a member of the ASTI-----

Deputy Thomas Byrne

Deputy Micheál Martin was a shop steward.

Deputy Bríd Smith

-----and at the time the word "ASTI" was like dirt because it was willing to go on strike to do something.

Deputy Thomas Byrne

Its name was not dirt in our party.

Deputy Bríd Smith

We will support the motion put forward by the Fianna Fáil Party and we agree with the measures it contains.

There is one measure that seriously needs to be taken. When unions decide to take action to deal with an injustice, all of us should get behind them and support their actions. We should not condemn them and not vote for a budget, either next year or the year after, that contains measures that discriminate against teachers, nurses, doctors and other public servants. Consistently, most of the parties in this House and an awful lot of the Independents have been endorsing a budget which is discriminatory and which has helped to lead to the current crisis in our schools. That is a great message to send out to the kids in future. It needs to be unpicked and undone as soon as possible.

Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan

Having been a second-level teacher for 36 years, I can testify to how worthwhile, rewarding and enjoyable a career it is. It is important to acknowledge that nobody goes into teaching to make a fortune but there are compensations, benefits and many positives and I enjoyed them for 36 years. I do not know if I will say the same about a career in politics but I certainly have that behind me with teaching. There is no doubt the teaching profession has been affected by the FEMPI legislation and that there is a direct link between it and the current shortages. This is about the inequality between teachers and those who have suffered six years of pay inequality and discrimination. We have all seen the figures. At this stage, a teacher who graduated in 2012 has lost €28,000 in salary. From my experience of teaching, I know that there is an element of things coming around in cycles. I remember a time when graduates got considerably more pay by going into private industry than would have been the case had they taken up teaching. The position now is similar because other careers are more lucrative than teaching. It is disappointing to hear people giving up teaching because of this. Dublin will suffer because of the cost of renting and buying property here.

There is another cycle. Some years ago, schools were no longer allowed to take on retired teachers. I can understood that move because its purpose was to give an opportunity to newly qualified teachers. We need to look at it now because of the shortages. Some of those retired teachers retired before they wanted to. They could be of great benefit to schools that are having difficulties getting substitute cover. The profession lost many good, experienced teachers due to the pressure some years ago for them to retire because unless they retired by a certain time their pensions would be affected. There was a concerted effort to get rid of those teachers who were being paid at the higher end of the scale. So much was lost in that particular exodus. It is opportune that we are having the discussion. I brought up my personal experience with the Minister some months ago. The Minister has outlined the statistics, the new teachers and the filling of posts, but I presented a reality which I, as chairperson of a board of management of a primary school, faced the past few months. We are still facing it. It is the result of career breaks for various reasons. There were a number of vacancies in the school and, having spent a full day interviewing in one month, another half day interviewing, and a further two to three hours interviewing, the posts were still not all filled so we had to resort to unqualified teachers. I had a difficulty with the five days because a class could then have a different teacher every five days. If a substitute cannot be found, a class is split - pupils will not be learning their own curriculum as a result - or support staff are taken from their work. Boards of management could benefit from guidance around the whole issue of career breaks. Schools cannot sustain a considerable number of career breaks in situations where half, if not more, of the staff are on a career break. Some of these career breaks happen because staff want to go to the Middle East because they will earn more money there. It also affects the staff.

I graduated in the days of the one-year H.Dip. We can all agree there were many limitations to it but we all survived into many years of good-quality teaching. We have gone to the other extreme now with the two-year course. It is costly and two years is a long time. It means it takes six years to train to be a teacher. The Teaching Council could be more proactive because it has all the statistics; it knows the numbers that are graduating. It knows the qualifications and the subjects. They could be more proactive by indicating shortages beforehand so they can be prepared for. They could also speed up registering, particularly retired teachers who did not realise they could come back to teaching and teachers who retired but who come from a time when there was no Teaching Council and who did not have to register in the first instance. I have come across teachers who have experienced long delays with the Teaching Council. It is extremely rigid and there seems to be no leeway.

I will leave it at that. There are other things I would like to have brought up but I am sharing time with Deputy Broughan.

Deputy Thomas P. Broughan

I warmly welcome the motion and agree with the proposed solutions, many of which seem to make eminent sense, such as agreeing a roadmap with the teaching unions on how we can achieve full pay equality as soon as possible, re-establishing the substitute supply panel at primary level, the use of teachers on career breaks, job-sharing and retired teachers, the swift registration of qualified teachers from Northern Ireland and other countries and to expedite the work started after the Teaching Council's 2015 report. These are all valuable suggestions and I urge the Minister to adopt them.

Last week, I asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, if his Department had received a request from the Department of Education and Skills regarding the shortage of teachers in key subject areas at second level. He told me that he had been "informed that there is not a teacher shortage but rather a shortage of teachers in some specific subject areas". This is typical Fine Gael spin - a shortage is not a shortage, although there is a shortage and the specific subject areas with reported shortages are those in the critical STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. That area had much publicised strategic plans announced late last year in budget 2018 and so too did digital learning. Fine Gael Governments and Ministers - with the notable exception of Minister of State, Deputy Cannon - have an appalling record of ignoring the importance of education in coding and computer science for our future social and economic development.

The Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, seems to have just copped on that coding in particular was depending on volunteers at local level, with community and after-school bodies and so on, to develop. It is so critical for Ireland's future as a digital nation.

In a reply to a recent parliamentary question, I was told that of the approximately 2,900 additional posts due to be filled in 2016-17 not all had been filled. Budget 2018 announced approximately 1,300 additional teaching posts in both levels of primary and secondary but in October The Irish Times reported management bodies saying, quite accurately, that “At second-level, the situation is complicated by an oversupply of teachers in some subject areas - such as English and geography - and an undersupply of teachers for languages, science and maths".

While conflicting figures for the number of graduating teachers are circulating, principals, teachers and their unions are clearly telling us that there is a crisis in filling key posts in STEM subjects. The Minister has a heavy responsibility in this regard. Like other Deputies, I have received a lot of correspondence from teachers who receive unequal pay for equal work, who are struggling to make ends meet and who are concerned that some students may be missing out on stable expert instruction in important subjects. The lack of substitute teachers is also highlighted as a real concern.

The ASTI, INTO and TUI trade unions made a submission to the Public Service Pay Commission in which they highlighted the need for pay inequality to be urgently rectified. Not only do new entrants start at a lesser salary, incremental credits were also changed and qualification allowances were abolished. ASTI, my own union, reports that there has been a reduction of 62% in applications for teacher education courses. That is a great cause for concern. The Higher Education Authority has said that the number of recently qualified teachers emigrating has increased five-fold.

The Teaching Council's report entitled Striking the Balance - Teacher Supply in Ireland: Technical Working Group Report, from December 2015 made several useful recommendations which included the setting up of a standing group to examine the supply needs of the sector for both primary and secondary levels into the future and improvement in data collection, particularly also with regards to education and training boards. These are recommendations that the Minister should take very seriously and act on urgently.

We must wonder why Fine Gael has steadfastly refused calls to restore urgently pay levels newly qualified teachers who were hired on lower pay scales after the crash. Our education system was a major factor in our economic advance during the Celtic tiger and the excellence of our teachers was a cornerstone of our social and economic development. The Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, is now at the steering wheel and it is important that he listens to this debate and adopts the positive resolutions which come from it.

Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice

I welcome this motion which has my full support. Some eight or ten years ago there was an abundance of teachers and some of them had no jobs. Now we are looking at a shortage, especially in certain areas. With whatever statistics are being collected, this situation should have been forecast. Equality and pay for young teachers is very important. It must be made attractive to bring people in. I agree with previous speakers that the Teaching Council needs to step up to the mark. We have all seen how when people are trying to register, there is so much rigmarole and it takes so long. It should be an efficient body which does this quickly. It holds up progress. Its job is to get the person in line to take up work as quickly as possible but it is not doing this.

It is worrying when one speaks to the multinationals and the high-tech firms here. We need to be at the forefront of subjects such as maths, physics and science.

People take career breaks, there is no point in saying that they do not, but as I have said previously, in health and other areas where there are problems in staffing numbers, we should dangle a carrot in front of people. For instance, we could tell them in college that they can have €3,000 annually if they sign up to remain in the country for a certain number of years. There is not much point in Irish taxpayers paying for education for people to then go to Dubai and various countries in the Middle East. Our country cannot afford that. We need to have a radical rethink. If someone wants to do that it is fine, they may do so, but they may have to pay for it. On the other side, things such as fees can be dropped in order to attract people into the area provided they are willing to remain in the country and work here for a certain time, after which they can go.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

There is a scarcity of teachers all of a sudden. It has something to do with the postgraduate courses which are now two years instead of one. The cost then deters students because it costs around €15,000 to do it. Take the example of a young fellow from Kilgarvan or Kenmare, and I know one to whom this has happened. It is impossible to do the course without having a car since part of it involves going to a selected school, it could be Bandon, Clonakilty, Kenmare or anywhere. A car is needed to go from the house to college. I know of one fellow who got a place on the course and everything but he was unable to get insurance for a car. He did not go ahead with taking his place on the course. That is one example of what is happening.

Conditions in Dubai are far better than here. They are paid better wages and are flown home once or twice a year. Ireland is not competing because the teachers are not being paid enough.

Many students have decided that teaching is not the way to go because of the wages and everything that it takes to become a teacher. If they stay in accommodation in Cork or Limerick, say, it costs over €100 every week and then there is €12,000 for the course. When all that is added up, it gives a reason why many students are not going into teaching.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

I thank Deputy Thomas Byrne and his party for bringing this very important motion before the House. As my brother, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, has stated, we are very fortunate in Ireland that we have such a wealth of fine young intelligent men and women who want to be teachers but unfortunately so many difficulties and obstacles are put in their way. One thing that drives me mad about teaching is where we have a very bright, qualified person who is looking for a full-time job. He or she applies for jobs, sends out CVs and goes for interviews but the jobs are gone, often before they are even advertised. Wherever that job is going is a done deal. It is awful because everyone deserves the same crack of the whip.

It is true that awful expenses are put in the way of people who want to be teachers. They must be really determined to get there and it is great when they eventually succeed. Our young students who want to become teachers have such an uphill battle that it is easy to see why they would be put off. We do not want that to happen, we want them to continue and become our teachers of the future. They play such an important and integral part of our lives by teaching our children, who are the next generation.

Deputy Michael Collins

Shortages of teachers at primary and secondary level are alarming considering the trust we put in them to educate our children. I am on a board of management and have seen first hand the difficulties faced by our excellent principal in Schull, Diarmuid Duggan, in securing substitute teachers.

I have been told that many schools throughout west Cork - this is probably replicated across the country - use SNAs because they cannot get replacement teachers, which is unfortunate to say the least. Many teachers emigrated during the economic downturn and they remain abroad. The Government must introduce an incentive to bring them back to Ireland because they currently have no financial reason to return.

The pay inequality that exists in the education sector is undoubtedly a factor in the crisis relating to the shortage of teachers. This must be addressed by the Government. In particular, there is an extreme shortage of SNAs in Irish-teaching schools and this must be addressed in order to protect the language and give those with physical disabilities a change to learn it. It is important that the Government to consider allowing, on a temporary basis, teachers who job-share to substitute in their own schools on their days off.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I, too, compliment an Teachta Byrne for tabling this motion. I welcome the students who are in the Gallery.

This is a developing situation. It did not happen today or yesterday and the Department should have seen it coming. I attended a briefing of the education and training board, ETB, in Tipperary recently and the shortages there, especially in Irish, mathematics and sciences, are frightening. In trying to get teachers to even apply, there is a problem across the board.

I note the inequality regarding new teachers. I refer to the so-called yellow-pack nurses and what I might call the "green-pack" teachers. These teachers are anything but green; they have studied and their parents have supported them. As Deputy Danny Healy-Rae stated, when they live in the country, they must travel and must have a car. In that context, there is the racket of insurance and everything else.

We want to keep our brightest and best in the system here in Ireland. We want them in order that they might impart their knowledge to our children. Indeed, I have children at all levels of education. I am a member of the university of life and I am learning every day.

The Minister is long enough in the Department to know the position. He has hung on through changes of Taoisigh. He would want to do something about this matter. It is staring the Minister in the face like a bloody buachalán buí growing in his front garden. It is just there. Teachers are emigrating to Dubai and elsewhere. Why would they not do so, particularly as they will get respect, parity of esteem and support?

I will say something to the trade unions. I note the presence here of trade unionists, former trade unionists, socialists and others. The unions were not fair either. The unions are represented in the Gallery, I have been just told. Tá fáilte rompu but they were not very good to the students or the young people when they pulled up the ladder and they got the deal done for themselves so that they will get nice pay and to hell with the newcomers such as the young fella. Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí. The unions did not mol any óige; they just stood on them and left them go to hell.

It is time we listened and time we did what we should do. Teachers are our brightest and best. We want them. The Minister's grandchildren will be teaching and my great-grandchildren, hopefully, will be teaching. They will have much to learn as a result of the hames the Government is making of the country, and much to teach the people as well.

The Minister should support the young teachers and keep them in Ireland. The Minister should allow them to exercise the good tuition that they have benefited from and the broad experience they have now with all the modern technology. He should support the young teachers.

As I stated to the unions as well, the day they made that deal was not a good day. I accept that there was a crisis but they looked after themselves. They pulled up the ladder and closed the shutters to keep the people down, and that was not good enough. Union bosses were over here today. I will bring it back to the union bosses because it is not the first time I have said it. I mean it. Fair play is fine play with me. They should respect these young students and teachers and support them and they will look after future generations, who will be in safe hands. They will be imparting their knowledge to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

On a point of order, that was voted through Dáil Éireann by Deputies - people who were elected.

An Ceann Comhairle

I thank the Deputy.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

On a second point of order, it is not just lads who become teachers.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

Men, just to be classifying them.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

Women exist as well.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not a point of order.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

Deputy Coppinger never makes a point of order.

Deputy Ruth Coppinger

A point of information then.

Deputy Brendan Smith

I compliment my colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne, on putting forward a comprehensive and practical motion. I hope that the Minister can give it favourable consideration. The motion is comprehensive. It deals with all aspects of the crisis facing second-level and primary schools in regard to teaching replacements.

From speaking to a principal and a deputy principal of a large second-level school in my constituency, I am aware that they regard the replacement of teachers who may be out sick or on career breaks as a crisis. One school told me that it advertised twice, last October and again at Christmas, for a career guidance teacher and it did not get a single applicant. It is the same regarding accounting and business - advertised at Christmas and no applicants. Action is needed. Schools indicate that much of their extracurricular activity will go by the wayside if there is not an improvement in the supply of teachers.

The slowness of the Teaching Council in registering students has been mentioned already. One proposal put to me is that the application for teacher registration should be put in process when a student is doing his or her postgraduate masters degree in education and that should be approved pending his or her final qualification. This would help to eliminate some of the delay.

The additional in-service hours required in respect of the reformed junior certificate cycle are increasing pressure on schools as well.

A number of years ago, one of the Minister's predecessors, Mr. Ruairí Quinn, brought in legislation in regard to minimising the amount of time that retired teachers could get back in the workplace and in the classroom and I was one of those who contributed. I advocated that under no circumstances should we be allowing those who had retired back in when there were qualified teachers available. At present, if a retired person goes back in, he or she goes back on the first point of entry of the scale. That is neither sensible nor attractive when these people are obliged to forgo their pension payments. Those retired teachers would have left the classroom on the maximum point of the scale.

I am told that teachers who are fully qualified but who are not registered with the Teaching Council can only be employed in a substitute capacity for four days in a row and then they must break that particular service and then may be employed again for four days. That is utterly ridiculous where their services are needed. These issues need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Deputy Lisa Chambers

I compliment my colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne, on putting forward such a coherent and substantive motion. I welcome the teachers' unions in the Gallery and thank them for being here with us.

First, we must acknowledge that there is a problem rather than switching to speaking about curtailing careering breaks or that we have not had a decrease in numbers when we know that student numbers went up, teacher numbers went up in line with them but this has not dealt with the issues in terms of shortages. No doubt, a bit like in the case of nurses, we are training our teachers for export. Two friends of mine, a young couple, both teachers, have been working and living in Dubai for the past two years because they could not sustain themselves on the salaries here due to the cost of living. Ninety per cent of primary schools are finding it difficult to get a substitute teacher. Unqualified persons are teaching our children. There are classrooms often left with no teacher to teach our children.

Pay inequality seems to be the big issue. It seems to be the reason we cannot attract teachers into the profession and also why we cannot retain them. Recently enough, I had cause to visit Newport national school in Mayo. I met the principal and two male teachers, both of whom qualified a year apart. One was on the old pay scale and one was on the new pay scale. The teacher who was getting the better salary was there in support of his colleague. He was there because the inequality is impacting on morale in the school as a result of the fact that the individual sitting beside him was down €30,000 for the past five years. They are working together, side by side, and they know they are getting paid less for the same work. That teacher was there in support of his colleague and I am sure the same is happening across the board. No doubt while not every teacher is affected the same, they all share the same goals in ensuring equality across the board - equal pay for equal work.

Deputy Eugene Murphy

Like Deputy Lisa Chambers, I thank Deputy Thomas Byrne who has given us a chance to enter into this debate. Like other Members on this side of the House, I met teachers' representatives in the Roscommon-Galway constituency.

Unequal pay in the teaching profession must end. That is the bottom line. Those who began teaching in 2012 will earn over €100,000 less over a 40-year career than people who began prior to 2011. To date, a teacher who entered the profession in 2012 has lost out to the tune of almost €30,000. That would be a nice deposit if some of those young teachers wanted to build houses. The current position is grossly unfair and the Minister knows it. Pay inequality is a major contributing factor to the lack of available substitute teachers at primary level. Children are missing out while many new teachers educated and trained in Ireland by the taxpayer end up going abroad. I heard a Minister state, only in recent days, that we have to stop these teachers going abroad. The fact is that they cannot afford to stay here. They are being forced out. Those teachers are heading off, as Deputy Lisa Chambers stated, to places such as Dubai because they are not getting fair treatment here. The sad fact of the matter is that they are heading abroad to receive equal pay and proper rights.

In spite of the pay cuts and in spite of still-too-high class sizes in this country, I want to pay a glowing tribute to our primary and secondary school teachers.

In this day and age they face many challenges they did not have to face in the past, and I think every Deputy in this Chamber recognises that. Therefore, I say to them, "Well done," and I hope their unions will bring back that message loud and clear from this side of the House. I accept that some progress was made between 2013 and 2016 and that the qualification allowance is now incorporated into the pay of post-2012 entrants into teaching. However, we still have two pay scales, which is not acceptable. Like my colleagues here, I hope the Minister will take on board what we are saying, listen to the unions and, once and for all, bring this to an end.

Deputy Dara Calleary

I, too, thank Deputy Byrne for giving us the opportunity to debate this matter. I will be brief. It is unfair of Deputy Mattie McGrath to attack the teachers' unions. They have worked hard in recent months and years to achieve progress on this, and we will have a report on pay equalisation by the end of March. The Minister was able to magic up €40 million yesterday to start to resolve the pension issue. He will have to magic up an awful lot more millions to bring equality to our health system and, especially on his watch, our education system. Tá seans ann freisin, agus Bliain na Gaeilge againn, nach mbeidh múinteoirí ann chun an Ghaeilge a mhúineadh sna coláistí agus sna scoileanna sa bhliain atá ag teacht. Má leanann an tAire ar aghaidh ag seasamh ar ais, ní bheidh aon mhúinteoirí againn. Muna bhfuil airgead sa mhúinteoireacht, ní bheidh suim ag daoine sa ghairm seo. An é sin an bhealach is fearr chun Bliain na Gaeilge a cheiliúradh? The Minister was proud of his work on his Action Plan for Jobs in the then Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We need action now in the Department of Education and Skills. The Minister can no longer continue to stick his head in the sand while every number is going against him and every statistic shows that the people we want, this year's leaving certificate class, are fleeing teaching because it is not considered as financially rewarding as so many other areas that could be dealt with without cost. The Minister showed that if there is interest on the part of the Minister, money can be found. Find the interest and the money will follow.

Deputy Frank O'Rourke

I too like my colleagues, welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion brought forward by my colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne. I acknowledge his good work in this area. Other Deputies have alluded to two major problems. Teachers are leaving from their early 20s to their mid- to late 30s and working abroad in cities such as Dubai because of the better pay and conditions available there, and that is a problem. Furthermore, the cost of living in Ireland is going out of control. I have raised this a number of times in this House. Young teachers cannot access mortgages, save the deposits required or make their payments. They cannot even afford motor insurance. The cost of living is therefore a major issue. Pay and conditions also need to be addressed to attract them to stay in this country. I have spoken to staff from a number of schools but I focused on two particular schools before coming in here today. Staff from one school told me it has a real shortage of teachers in the area of special needs. That is a major problem and a big difficulty for them. Furthermore, there is a major problem with teacher shortages in languages, including Irish, home economics and physics. One such school was not able to find a metalwork teacher, as a result of which it had to shut down that subject this year, starting in September of last year, and was not able to make it available to students. It is an awful shame that students who could be very applied in that area are not able to access a subject that could be one of their strengths because of a lack of teaching resources. As all my colleagues have outlined, this is a major issue. I am sure the Minister is aware of it and I hope he and his officials will be able to address it. I welcome the union representatives here this evening. I know that many management bodies in the different schools gave detailed submissions to the Department before Christmas outlining these issues and highlighting the problems in the hope that the Minister might deliver solutions.

Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development (Deputy Seán Kyne)

Is mian liom buíochas a ghabháil leis na Teachtaí a d'inis a gcuid scéalta, a chur chomh mór leis an díospóireacht seo ar sholáthar mhúinteoirí. Tá ról ríthábhachtach ag múinteoirí i sochaí na tíre seo. Tá an t-ádh linn go bhfuil múinteoirí den scoth againn atá tiomanta do ghairm na múinteoireachta. Sula ndéanaim cur síos ar na ceisteanna tábhachtacha atá curtha chun cinn ag na Teachtaí Dála, sílim go bhfuil sé tábhachtach béim faoi leith a chur ar chúrsaí áirithe. Tugann an Rialtas seo tús áite d'infheistíocht san earnáil oideachais. Tá sé mar aidhm ag an Aire go mbeidh seirbhís oideachais agus oiliúna na hÉireann ar an tseirbhís is fearr ar fud na hEorpa. Tacaíonn an Rialtas leis an aidhm seo. Tá méadú de €1 bhilliún tagtha ar infheistíocht san earnáil oideachais le dhá bhliain anuas. De bharr na hinfheistíochta breise seo, d'éirigh leis an Aire níos mó ná 5,000 múinteoirí breise a earcú le dhá bhliain anuas.

Deputies have raised a number of questions. Deputy Calleary mentioned funding. An extra €1 billion has been provided in the past two years within the Department funding. Department funding has reached its highest ever level, at more than €10 billion for the coming year. This Government is recruiting more teachers now than at any other time in the history of the State. This is very significant and has been welcomed, I assume, by many Deputies here. It is important to note that the number of graduates from initial teacher training colleges has also remained constant in the past five years. We have seen more than 8,000 primary school teachers and more than 7,800 second level teachers graduate from initial teacher education. In 2018, it is estimated that about 1,870 primary teachers and 1,520 post-primary teachers will graduate. This is in line with graduate levels in recent years.

Deputy Michael Collins mentioned SNAs. The number of SNAs in our schools has also increased, and from September will have increased to more than 15,000 SNAs across the sector. This is also to be welcomed.

The motion before us references the issue of pay. It is important for Deputies to remember that differential pay scales were created by the last Fianna Fáil Government in 2010 in response to the financial crisis during its last term. The Minister, Deputy Bruton, concluded an agreement with the teachers' unions in 2016 which gave newly qualified teachers a pay increase of 15% to 22%, the second payment of which was received by teachers on 1 January this year, meaning a teacher straight out of college will start on nearly €36,000. Under the new public service stability agreement, the starting salary for a teacher will be more than €37,600 from October 2020. I accept that teachers' unions have outstanding pay demands and that this deal does not travel the full distance they wish to achieve, and I know a number of Deputies have highlighted that, including Deputies Lisa Chambers and Eugene Murphy. However, significant progress has been made, and the door is not closed to the trade unions seeking to advance the issue further. A commitment is included in the new agreement to consider the issue of pay for newly qualified teachers within 12 months of the commencement of the agreement.

Deputies have also raised a number of issues reported by some schools regarding the difficulty in recruiting substitute teachers in primary schools and issues around recruiting certain subject teachers at second level. One of the consequences of having recruited thousands of new teachers on permanent contracts in primary schools is that young teachers are less likely to want to take up short-term, temporary or substitute roles, which arise in schools for a number of reasons, including the need to cover sick leave and career breaks. A number of measures are being taken in the immediate short term, including ensuring, in as far as possible, that as many retiring and retired teachers remain on the Teaching Council register. The Minister is considering other measures in this area to alleviate pressure and he will make an announcement in this regard shortly.

Some post-primary schools have reported shortages in recruiting teachers in specific subjects at post-primary level, such as the STEM subjects, as alluded to by Deputy Broughan, Irish and home economics. Part of the reason for this is an imbalance in the availability of teachers in certain subjects, with an oversupply of teachers in some areas and an undersupply in others. The Minister is considering a range of measures to resolve these issues and has already introduced some interventions, including an increase in the number of students admitted to St. Angela's, Sligo, to follow the home economics programme, which is one of the areas of tightness, with further expansion in future years. As part of the policy on Gaeltacht education, the Minister has increased the number of places in the professional master of education programme in NUI Galway. The Minister is considering what further actions are necessary.

The number of people applying for teacher training has broadly remained constant in recent years, with similar numbers applying to train as primary school teachers at undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as to train as a second level teacher at undergraduate level. Reports that there are only, for example, six students in training to be physics teachers are completely incorrect. Twenty-one physics students are currently in a PME course to become a second level teacher. However, the postgraduate PME route is only one way in which to graduate as a second level science teacher. There are now a number of options to train as a science teacher at undergraduate level, including in UL, DCU, UCC and St. Angela's. In the 2016-17 academic year there were 467 students training to be science teachers. However, there has been a fall in the number training to be second level teachers at postgraduate level. This issue must be carefully examined, and will be, by the Minister.

Teacher supply planning is a complex matter and requires good underlying statistics and analysis across a number of areas. Advice submitted by the Teaching Council provides useful guidance on the development of a long-term teacher supply planning model for primary level and more general advice for post-primary.

I acknowledge the number of suggestions made by Deputies, including Deputies Maureen O'Sullivan, Fitzmaurice and Brendan Smith, regarding the Teaching Council.

The Minister and his officials are working on a range of proposals to address the current difficulties in teacher supply and substitution. In advancing proposals, there will be consultation with relevant groups and stakeholders. A number of steps have already been taken and a programme of action will be announced shortly by the Minister. I thank the Deputies for raising this matter. The Minister is committed to working with all stakeholders in the best interests of schools, learners and academics.

Deputy Barry Cowen

I want to add my voice to that of our spokesperson and my colleagues who have spoken in favour of the motion and I commend them on doing so. Like many Members of the Houses, in recent months I have been approached by members of the teaching profession and their unions in my constituency. I am fearful for the morale of the profession in light of the differentiation which continues to exist and I hope the Government, on foot of the amendment inserted in the pensions Bill at the behest of Deputy Calleary, caters for the commission to feed into the process as quickly as possible in order that progress can be made.

Many of the teachers affected by this are facing purchasing homes, starting married life and various new costs of living, and their ability to deal with them is greatly strained. There needs to be an indication by the Government to ensure they get the support they deserve and they continue along a very noble profession. Many of us would say it is a vocation. I agree with this and I acknowledge the great work done on the State's behalf in the education of our children. I hope the Government takes the earliest opportunity to ensure we restate our commitment to them and our support for them, and right this wrong. This needs to be done to stop the flow, whereby in many instances they must leave the State to pursue their chosen field.

The Taoiseach stated the way in which applications are made through the CAO for various professions is cyclical. I do not believe this is necessarily the case. Morale and the commentary taking place are what is affecting the ability to attract people to the profession.

Deputy Jack Chambers

I have met young teachers who are members of the INTO in my constituency. The cumulative loss to them over their working lifetime will be between €70,000 and €100,000. The Government's policy of pay inequality needs to end. Teachers are leaving the country en masse and it cannot continue. The Government needs to properly reward teachers with decent pay and conditions, and its failure to deliver acceptable working conditions has led to our best and brightest leaving en masse. Who can blame them when it appears the Government and the Minister have no appetite to address properly the myriad problems in the sector? There has been a complete collapse in the numbers applying for teaching courses. The State Examinations Commission is pleading for schools to release teachers to assess leaving certificate and junior certificate oral and practical examinations.

A record number of Irish teachers are now working abroad and there is a complete shortage of suitable substitute teachers. These points are particularly stark. We know our graduates, be they teachers, nurses or doctors, are among the best trained in the world, but other countries also know it and, unlike Ireland, they are willing to pay decent wages because they recognise and appreciate the importance of the teaching profession. London, Dubai and Sydney will continue to reap the benefits of Ireland's talented young teachers until the Government agrees a roadmap with teachers on how full pay equality will be achieved. This is what today's motion calls for.

The issue of substitute teachers is one that has been raised with me locally on numerous occasions. In my constituency of Dublin West, the Dublin 15 primary principals' network has conducted considerable work in the area. In a letter to the Minister, they stated they have grave concerns about the unprecedented lack of teachers available to fill posts. They also note this is having a serious impact on the day to day running of schools, the safety of our children and the quality of our learning. It is not good enough that the Minister has failed to address this issue and, with the Taoiseach, has his head in the sand on this matter. It is important that he addresses it, attracts young teachers home and keeps new graduates working with full pay equality.

Deputy Jackie Cahill

I compliment our spokesperson, Deputy Thomas Byrne, on tabling this issue in Private Members' time. The crisis in teaching and its impact on our education system, if unresolved, will cause long-term damage to our economy. If we do not restore the prestige of the teaching profession, in how we value it as a society and how we reward it by way of salary, the best young men and women will not choose teaching as a career. Ongoing pay inequality has resulted in a recruitment and retention crisis for teachers. There are also major difficulties for schools in securing substitute teachers when required.

Recent reports of a total collapse in the number of people applying for teacher training courses are no surprise. The costs of training keep increasing and more and more of the burden is put on prospective teachers. Prospective teachers pay more in fees to qualify and receive lower pay when they complete their training. At present, the cost of training is almost €11,000 and people simply cannot afford such fees. Evidence of the crisis is there for all to see and it is reflected in the fall in applications for teaching courses, the difficulty recruiting examiners, the extra €80 million needed in 2017 as projected teacher retirements doubled, the record number of retired teachers plugging school gaps, and the 3,000 unqualified teachers employed in the system. Action is required now. The Government must engage seriously with all stakeholders, including the Opposition, parents, teachers, the unions and employers. The Government must acknowledge there is a crisis. It must also realise that although this crisis happened because of the recession, the recession can no longer be used as an excuse for the Government's continuing inaction.

Deputy Thomas Byrne

Gabhaim buíochas le gach duine atá ag tabhairt tacaíochta don rún seo. Tá siad ag taispeáint an taithí atá acu ar an bhfadhb seo óna bheith i dteagmháil le múinteoirí agus é sin i ngach Dáilcheantair. Tá an Twitter hashtag #TrasnaNadTonnta ag cur soiléireachta orthu siúd atá thar lear agus atá Gaeilge acu. Tá a fhios againn go bhfuil a lán Gaeilgeoirí ag obair san UAE, i Bahrain agus i dtíortha eile mar sin. Táimid ag iarraidh a rá leo sa rún seo go bhfuil fiúntas leo agus gurbh fhearr linne dá mbeadh siad anseo ag múineadh in Éirinn agus gur féidir linn é sin a dhéanamh má deir an tAire leo go mbeidh pá cothrom acu anseo, go bhfuil fiúntas ag baint leis an bproifisiún seo agus go bhfuil meas ag an bpobal agus ag an Rialtas orthu.

I thank everybody for their support for the motion. Many people have raised the issue and it has received support from all sides of the House except the Fine Gael Party. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae really summed up the issue of the professional master of education, PME, in terms of the costs associated with it, not only fees but also travel costs to college and to work experience and accommodation costs. If we listened to what the Minister said, he completely agreed with us on the PME. It is not organised and it is a disaster. He does not know what teachers he will have next September and he has admitted that. It is unsatisfactory. We must look at it again. We cannot simply be slaves to the third level lobby on this issue, and I say this with the utmost respect for it. As the leader of my party said this morning, postgraduate courses in general are becoming a cash cow for colleges, understandably in some ways because of the lack of funding from Central Government, but this has to end. We know there are other ways for teachers to qualify and the Minister needs to accelerate them and take his head out of the sand.

The unhinged rant of Deputy Mattie McGrath was unfair and unwarranted in terms of people in the Gallery. It was wrong. The trade union leaders I meet are extremely strong advocates. They meet every party and have robust exchanges with them on behalf of their members on this issue. They certainly challenge me and I am sure they challenge the Minister. I compliment the unions on the work they did last year in bringing the newly-qualified teachers 50% of the way. The Minister was in Cabinet when that happened. For myself, I put on significant public pressure in this regard, as did my party and other colleagues throughout the House. I worked with the unions at that time and saw not only their determination but the determination of their members and how serious were the young and older professional people who wanted to make it right. It is about time the Minister actually said he believes in pay equality and works towards it because everybody agrees with it.

I compliment Deputy Calleary on his work on the public pay Bill. There was some talk about that before Christmas but the bottom line is because of what Fianna Fáil put forward, the Government must come back with a report on this, more than likely before the teacher conferences. That will help to bring the debate forward.

Another instructive signal in the debate was that among all the Opposition, and certainly in my party, we were fighting for speaking slots. People were looking for a minute to speak on it as they are passionate about the topic. That includes the Rural Independent Group, Sinn Féin, the left and everybody else, and Fianna Fáil in particular. There were two speakers from the Fine Gael Party struggling to fill the time they had. That, coming from the largest party in the House, says a lot about how it views this problem and the priority attached to it. Why were there so few Fine Gael and Government speakers on the matter? Let us be honest, this is what teachers and principals are talking to us about. It is crucial for the country. The foundation of our economy, society and nation is in education. It got us up the ladder individually and as a country. We must take it seriously.

Nobody has queried any of the solutions I proposed. The only criticism I received, mentioned by the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, and put around the media this morning, was that it was misleading people to say there were only six physics graduates. That figure is reported in The Irish Times. Some have suggested there are fewer but the ministerial response was that there were 21 such graduates. Everybody agrees the number of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, teacher trainees is at a crisis level. The Government is splitting hairs over figures when it does not know them; if it did, the figures would be in the amendment. The truth is the Government does not know the figures or have any control over them. It is part of the problem.

The Government should work with the unions, the education partners and management bodies. There are temporary solutions but there should be a review. The Ministers should work hard with their Government colleagues and we will support them every step of the way if they decide to advocate for pay equality. I know the unions will support the Minister if that happens as well. I am sure the unions will continue to challenge all of us, as I will challenge the Minister on the matter until it is resolved.

Amendment put.

An Ceann Comhairle

In accordance with Standing Order 70(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time on Thursday, 25 January 2018.