Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 September 2022
350. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Education if her attention has been drawn to the fact that a number of teaching positions in schools across the Dublin Mid-West area are unfilled due to the lack of affordable accommodation and the increasing cost-of-living; and if she intends to engage with colleagues across Government in relation to the way that this can be addressed. [45059/22]
View answerI fully appreciate the concerns of teachers and indeed society generally in relation to housing and increases in living costs.
The Government acknowledges that current price pressures present particular challenges and are a source of concern for all public service workers, including teachers. While the issue of pay alone will not resolve these issues, the Government is committed to the delivery of quality public services, and will continue to approach public service pay in a balanced way that is reasonable and fair to both public servants and the taxpayer. There is an important balance to be struck between maintaining industrial peace and protecting the Exchequer.
The value of public pay deals to the Government and the taxpayer is ensuring that pay costs are managed in a sustainable and orderly way and in a climate of industrial peace. By and large public pay agreements have delivered on these objectives over the last 12 years. Following the conclusion of discussions on 30 August, the parties to Building Momentum, with the expert assistance of the WRC who oversaw the talks' process, have come forward with a set of proposals, to extend the terms of Building Momentum to 31 December 2023. Government have approved these proposals which have been published in full. It is now a matter for public service unions and associations representing the public service workforce to consider and ballot on those proposals. The proposals, if adopted by unions and staff representative associations, will provide stability in a period of significant global uncertainty. It is appropriate at this time to allow space for the respective union and association memberships to reflect on the proposals.
In recent years my Department has established a comprehensive programme of work to support the supply of teachers at both post-primary and primary levels, including the introduction of new programmes of initial teacher education and teacher upskilling programmes in targeted subject areas and the Teaching Transforms campaign, which encourages young people to follow a career in teaching.
I have allocated significant additional posts to the primary substitute teacher supply panels in areas where significant challenges in sourcing substitution continue, bringing the total to 610 posts on 151 panels, covering approximately 2,800 schools, including the large majority of primary schools in Dublin. The supply panels work alongside the existing methods of sourcing substitute teachers, such as Sub Seeker , the national substitution portal service operated by the Irish Primary Principals' Network and schools can also make local arrangements to have their own regular substitutes to call on if needed.
The Council is also currently processing applications for registration from newly qualified teachers, who will represent a new source of supply in 2022/23. In excess of 3,200 primary and post-primary NQTs are registered to date with almost 100 further applications currently in progress.
