Ministers have argued against the introduction of a Dublin allowance for teachers to help address problems schools have faced in recruiting in the Irish capital ahead of the academic year.
Teachers’ union the ASTI said on Monday that there were 416 unfilled post-primary teaching posts on the education recruitment website educationposts.ie, and accused successive ministers for education of adopting “a minimalist approach to the problem”.
The union has called on the teachers’ pay scale to be shortened and the number of middle management posts in schools to be doubled to address staff shortages.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said that teachers’ starting salaries have increased under various public sector pay agreements, and other initiatives have been taken by Government ahead of the academic year.
This includes teachers being shared between schools that are located near one other, and facilitating the return of retired teachers.
When asked about whether a Dublin allowance would be needed to help teachers afford to live in the capital, Mr Donohoe said: “The challenges that we are facing in Dublin are ones that are felt across many cities and many, many parts of our countries at the moment.
“We are facing general challenges … in relation to ensuring that we have the right numbers of teachers in the right schools and on the right subjects and we do accept that for many schools at the moment this is a particularly difficult and challenging time, and this is a source of concern to many parents.
“But the best way of responding back to this is by having measures in place that support an overall response to this within our country, (and) is why we’ve had a number of public sector wage agreements that have looked at making particular progress on starting salaries for those who are joining our public service, and the Department of Education has also had a number of initiatives in place now over the past year to try to help with this issue, particularly within our cities.
“That is the approach that we will continue with.”
Minister for Higher and Further Education Simon Harris agreed that the challenges faced by teachers trying to live in Dublin “is not unique to teaching”.
“When you live in a country with full employment, with record levels of employment, we know that there are many pinch points across the public sector and indeed in all departments and all agencies there is a relentless effort to recruit.”
