Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 May 2026
321. Deputy John Paul O'Shea asked the Minister for Education and Youth the measures being taken to address teacher recruitment and retention challenges in rural schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40858/26]
View answerThis Government is committed to ensuring that every child has a positive school experience, with access to qualified and engaged teachers who are dedicated to supporting their learning.
There are more qualified teachers than ever working in Ireland. As of November 2025, there are over 75,000 teachers employed in Irish schools, including 34,600 at post-primary level, 39,300 at primary level and 1,870 in special schools. This analysis found that just 0.7% of allocations (247 posts) in post-primary and 2.5% of allocations (996 posts) in primary were unutilised. Just 1.6% of allocated teaching posts in rural schools were unutilised. Few teachers resign, with less than 3% of the teaching workforce resigning or retiring annually from contracted teaching posts.
Teaching is an attractive profession, and there are a significant number of newly qualified teachers graduating annually. Over 3,600 newly qualified teachers registered with the Teaching Council in 2025 and CAO data shows a consistent demand for undergraduate ITE programmes. Salaries are competitive, currently starting at €45,379 (primary) and €46,948 (post-primary) and rising to €83,576 and €85,411 under the current pay deal.
Whilethe vast majority of allocated teaching posts are filled, certain schools in some areas experience recruitment and retention challenges, and this Government has implemented several measures to address teacher supply issues more generally that have led to:
- an increase of 20% in initial teacher education graduates (student teachers) between 2018 and 2023, and
- an over 30% increase in the number of teachers registered with the Teaching Council since 2017.
These include improving tenure for teachers; teachers taking up their first contract in a viable post will be eligible for a permanent position after one year, subject to successful re-appointment through a competitive process.
Recently regulations were approved to allow teachers who qualified overseas to undertake theirinduction in the State and incremental credit is also available to teachers returning from abroad, depending on the teaching experience gained.
A number of measures have been introduced to address subject-specific teacher shortages:
- STEM Bursary: a €2k annual bursary for student teachers in STEM fields during the final two years of their undergraduate teacher education, with a requirement to complete at least 2 years of teaching post-qualification in a recognised post-primary school.
- Upskilling programmes: free upskilling programmes for teachers are offered in high-demand subjects: Irish, French, politics & society, and computer science maths, physics, and Spanish.
A comprehensive workforce plan for the education sector, a commitment under the Programme for Government, is in development. Additionally,aproject focused on strategic workforce planning for teachers in Ireland, led by UNESCO and supported by the EU Commission, is developing recommendations for addressing the main factors affecting teacher supply in Ireland. The recommendations put forward in the context of the project will form the basis for the development by my Department of a strategic workforce plan for the teaching workforce in Ireland.
